

Class L^ J^ f'^^ ^Z 
Book_ 






6)P3TightiN?_ 



Ci>EffiIGHT DEPOSm 




STORY-TELLING, QUESTIONING 
AND STUDYING 



330oitg fig tlje Same ^utjor 



Published by The Macmillan Company 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 

295 pages. New York, 1904. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

435 pages. New York, 1907. 

IDEALISM IN EDUCATION 

183 pages. New York, 1910. 

FREE WILL AND HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY 

197 pages. New York, 1912. 



Published by The Association Press 

THE LEADERSHIP OF BIBLE STUDY GROUPS 

62 pages. New York, 1912. 



STORY-TELLING, QUESTIONING 
AND STUDYING 

THREE SCHOOL ARTS 



BY 



HEKMAN HAEEELL HOENE, Ph.D. (Habv.) 

PBOFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 

HEW YORK UNIVERSITY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1916 

All rights reserved 






COPTEIGHT, 1916, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 19 16. 



4 1: 



Nottooolr Press 

J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 

NOV -9 1916 
©aA4455?9 



XTo 

JULIA, BETSY, BILLIE, and IDA 

WHO LOVE STORIES 

ASK QUESTIONS, AND ARE LEARNING 

HOW TO STUDY 



PREFACE 

In 1900 Colonel Parker spoke before the 
National Education Association on "Art in 
Everything." 

Art is a fundamental need of life. It is a 
mode of self-expression. It is one of the se- 
crets of growth. It is a source of joy in work. 
It takes the sting out of drudgery. It makes 
something sing in the heart. It, and not money, 
is that by which the souls of men live; by 
money the body lives, or dies. It removes 
tedium and delays fatigue. Not merely to en- 
joy works of art, but to make life in some sense 
an sesthetic accomplishment is a requisite to 
complete living. 

We need to socialize art. We have allowed 
a class in society to express itself in art forms 
and to joy in the expression. This is what all 
members of society should do, each in his own 

7 



8 PEEFACE 

way. Social conditions will in time be changed 
to allow it. 

Each type of artist contributes a new pleas- 
urable quality to life. The painter, the poet, 
the musician, the sculptor, the architect, the 
landscape gardener, the actor, the dancer, the 
story-teller, — each in his own way increases 
the sum of human happiness. 

The teacher, too, is an artist, or may be. His 
part is to make living itself complete, beautiful. 
In his address on "The Art of the Teacher," 
given when United States Commissioner of 
Education, Chancellor Brown said, "... the 
fine art of the teacher deals with real things on 
their ideal side." 

Every child is an artist. The teacher opens 
the door to sesthetic enjoyment and expression 
for the child. This he does by living art in the 
presence of his pupils. His methods have the 
aesthetic stamp. His achieving is beautiful. 
Through aesthetic teachers life itself will in time 
become beautiful, harmonious, spontaneous, 
free, organized. Beauty is the foe of injustice, 
evil, error, ugliness, disease, and war. 



PREFACE 9 

As teachers we need to awaken to the fact 
that Hfe in the making is in our hands. If we 
are the artificers of Hfe we ought to be, not 
again after one generation will the face of hu- 
manity be marred. Had we been a voice and 
not an echo for the past generation, the present 
world-tragedy could not have been. 

Three main school arts are story-telling, 
questioning, and studying. Story-telling be- 
longs in the upper grades and in the high school 
as well as in the lower grades and in the kinder- 
garten, where it is domiciled at present. Ques- 
tioning belongs in college and university, if 
the classes are fortunately small enough in size, 
as well as in secondary and elementary schools, 
where it has been the teacher's staff since the 
days of printing. Studying aright belongs in 
the lower grades and even in the kindergarten, 
for young children have to face their little 
problems and try to solve them, as well as 
throughout the subsequent stages of learning 
and living. In fact, these three are universal 
school arts. They are a part of the technique 
of all teaching as a craft. 



10 PREFACE 

Yet these arts have to be adapted to the age 
of the pupil. The following pages, however, 
have had all ages in mind. Consequently those 
who read for practical guidance only will find a 
few pages here and there which they will prefer 
to omit. Those who read all, for the sake of 
the subjects themselves, whether they be ap- 
prentices, journeymen, or masters, will prob- 
ably find nothing unintelligible, though it be 
unusable. 

May these and other arts of the teacher be 
so well done that teaching becomes in a measure 
a fine art.^^ Perhaps so. 

The content of these studies has been given 
in lecture form from time to time in the Extra- 
Mural courses for teachers of New York Uni- 
versity in Brooklyn, Newark, and Paterson, and 
is the better for the sympathetic criticism there- 
with accorded them. 

H. H. H. 

Leonia, N.J., 

December 30, 1915. 



ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTEE I 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 



L Introduction 



1. Civilization and Story-Telling 

2. Present-day Revival of the Story 

3. Illustrations of Stories 



11. Definition of the Story 
III. The Form of the Story 



IV. The Purpose of Story-Telling 

1. As Art . 

2. Lincoln as a Story-Teller 

V. The Importance of the Story 

1. The Tool of Primitive Man 

2. The Simplest Vehicle of Truth 

3. Adaptability of its Form 

VI. The Characteristics of the Good Story 



Vn. How to Tell a Story 



1. With Personal Magnetism 

2. In its Setting . 

3. From the Child's Standpoint 

4. Imaginatively . 

5. Dramatically . 

6. Feelingly .... 

7. Self-forgetfully 

8. With Indirection . , 

11 



19 
19 
20 
22 

23 
26 
28 

28 
29 

31 
31 
34 
36 

37 
40 
40 
41 
41 
42 
42 
43 
43 
43 



n ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

VIII. The Reactions op Children on Stories . . 45 

1. Teaching by Expression 45 

2. Re-telling Stories 46 

3. Illustrating and Dramatizing .... 46 

IX. The Place of the Story in Education . . 48 

X. Final Suggestions 49 

XL References 53 

1. Where to Find Stories 53 

2. How to Tell Stories 54 

3. Lists of Graded Stories 55 

XII. Questions 60 

L On the Art of Story-Telling .... 60 

2. For Further Study 60 

CHAPTER II 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 



I. Introduction 

1. Plato on Questioning 

2. Outline of this Chapter 



IL 



III. 
IV. 



The Importance of Questioning 

1. A Main Mode of Teaching 

2. The Time it Consumes . 

3. An Aid in Securing Attention 

4. An Aid in Class Management 

5. Essential to Good Teaching . 

The General Purposes of Questioning 



The Kinds of Question .... 

1. The Auxiliary Question, with Illustrations 

2. The Searching or Heuristic Question, with 

Illustrations 

3. The Review Question, with Illustrations 

4. The Examinational Question, with Illustra- 

tions 



62 
62 
63 

64 
64 
64 
65 
65 
66 

67 



70 
74 

77 



ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS 13 

PAGE 

V. The Manner of Questioning .... 80 

1. With Sympathy 80 

2. Question before Pupil 80 

3. No Predictable Order of Pupils ... 81 

4. But Little Repetition 81 

5. With Deliberation 82 

6. When to Ask General and Specific Questions 82 

VI. The Form of the Question 84 

1. Clearness 84 

2. Brevity 85 

3. Good English 85 

4. The " Yes " or " No " Answer .... 86 

5. No " Leading " Question .... 86 

VII. The Content of the Question .... 87 

1. Stimulating 88 

2. Definite 88 

3. Essential 89 

4. Logical 90 

5. Thought-provoking 90 

6. Suited to Individual Capacity ... 91 

VIII. The Questioner 91 

1. Prepare in Advance 91 

2. Analytic 92 

3. Practical 92 

4. Elicit the Best 93 

5. Be Ready to Answer 94 

6. Self-critical 96 

7. Study the Literature 97 

IX. The Answer 97 

1. The Pupil's Reaction 98 

2. Good Language 98 

3. Correctness 98 

4. Oral and Written Answers .... 99 

5. How to Treat the Incorrect Answer . . 99 

6. Answers to be Discouraged .... 100 

7. Examples of Natural Humor in Answers . 101 



14 



ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS 



XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 



Great Questioners 103 

1. Socrates . . 103 

2. Jesus 107 

3. Dr. Mark Hopkins .111 

4. The Skilful Lawyer Ill 

The Larger Questions 114 

References on the Art of Questioning . . 114 

Questions 115 

1. On the Art of Questioning .... 115 

2. For Further Study 116 



CHAPTEE III 



L 



IL 



in. 



IV. 

V. 

VI. 



Introduction .... 








. 118 


1. The New Interest in this Subject 






. 118 


2. Present-day Waste in Education 






. 119 


Definition of Study 






. 120 


1. Too Narrow a Definition 






. 120 


2. Statement of the Definition . 






121 


General Presuppositions of Study 






122 


L The Life of Study . 






122 


2. Many Interests 








123 


3. Independence . 








124 


4. The Love of Truth . 








125 


5. The Habit of Study 








127 


6. The Ideal of Study . 








128 


Mechanical Aids to Study . 








129 


Physical Conditions of Study 








131 


How to Study .... 








134 


1. Three Related Questions 








134 


2. The Herbartian Formula 








134 



ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS 



15 



5. 



Four Phases of the Study Process 
How Shall I Study? 

(1) The Problem . 

(2) The Hunt . 

(3) The Solution . 

(4) Its Use . 
Comparison with McMurry'a List 



VIL How TO Study a Text 

1. Definition of Need 

2. Analysis . 

3. Synthesis . 

4. Application 



Vin. Training Pupils to Study 

1. Difficulties in Learning to Study 

2. At What Age Should Such Training Begin 

3. "When and Where Shall the Child Study? " 

4. How the Training Should be Done 

(1) Study with the Pupils 

(2) Sensing the Problem 

(3) Hunting for the Solution 

(4) Recognizing the Solution 

(5) Using the Solution . 

(6) Enlist the Aid of Parents 

IX. Influence op Good Teaching on Studying 

1. Various Methods Repeat the Factors 

Study 

2. Use of the Psychology of Learning 

3. Right Attitude toward Texts . 

4. Variety of Presentation .... 

5. Right Examinations .... 

6. Place Responsibility on Pupils 

7. The Teacher must be a Student 

8. Consequent Principles of Teaching and 

Studying . 

X. The Five Results of Study . 



PAGB 

136 
139 
139 
139 
140 
140 
141 

143 
143 
144 
146 
147 

148 
148 
149 
150 
151 
151 
153 
153 
154 
154 
155 

157 

157 
159 
160 
161 
162 
163 
163 

165 
166 



16 ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XI. Three Problems Related to the Art of Study 167 

1. Mastering a New Book 167 

2. Making Notes 169 

3. Writing a Paper 169 

XII. Guiding the Study Process 171 

XIII. References on the Art of Study . . . 174 

XIV. Questions 175 

1. On the Art of Studying 175 

2. For Further Study 176 



STORY-TELLING, QUESTIONING 
AND STUDYING 



STORY-TELLING, QUESTIONING, 
AND STUDYING 

CHAPTER I 

THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 

Civilization is hard on story -telling as on the 
other simple arts of primitive man. The trans- 
mission of culture by oral tradition ^^^.^^^^^^^^ 
has been supplanted by the printed and story- 

« 11- telling 

page. The exactions ot modern busi- 
ness leave little time and less inclination to 
the father to regale the souls of his children 
with tales told him when he was a boy, or 
even of the happenings of his own boyhood. 
The club-life in cities often separates father, and 
sometimes even the mother, from the children 
at the bedtime hour. The cellar furnace and 
the gas log are the poor substitutes of modern 
life for the old open fireplace. The result is 
that story-telling as an art is in danger of vanish- 

19 



20 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

ing from our modern life, and with it much of 
the joy and culture of the olden time. 

Yet it is still true that the hearts of children 

hunger for fairyland and their souls thirst for 

the elemental racial happenings, and 

The 

Revival of amply rewarded are the parents and 
teachers who satisfy them. The re- 
vival of story-telling will contribute something 
toward keeping young and fresh a nervous and 
fatigued civilization. In the older simpler coun- 
tries the story as a medium of instruction and 
entertainment still survives, as in India, Ara- 
bia, Persia, Norway, and South America. It is 
not a fatuous delusion to suppose that a cus- 
tom so nourishing to the human soul, and 
yet so endangered by our mode of life, may be 
preserved by diligent effort. 

So at least think the members of the Story- 
Tellers' League,^ and so think the kindergart- 
ners. The disciples of Froebel have helped save 
the story to our generation. The Boy Scout 
movement with its camp-fire and tales may 

^ For information address R. T. Wyche, Everett House, New York, 
or The Story Hour, 3320 Nineteenth St., N. W., Washington, D.C., or 
The Story-Teller's Magazine 27 W. 23d St., N. Y. City. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 21 

also be expected to help perpetuate the story. 

Thompson Seton makes his hearers feel the magic 

of the camp-fire, and concerning the open fire 

John Burroughs has written : 

The open fire is a primitive, elemental thing. It cheers 
with more than mere heat; it is a bit of the red heart 
of nature laid bare ; it is a dragon of the prince docile and 
friendly there in the corner. What pictures, what ac- 
tivity, how social, how it keeps up the talk ! You are 
not permitted to forget it for a moment. How it responds 
when you nudge it ! How it rejoices when you feed it ! 
Why, an open fire in your room is a whole literature. It 
supplements your library as nothing else in the room does 
or can. 

Both the public libraries and the playground 
associations are also helping to revive the art 
of story-telling in our day. The quantity of 
the new literature on this subject is surprisingly 
large. So long as society preserves the child- 
hood of the children, the fascination of "Once 
upon a time" will remain, and it will be an 
ominous day for society when, through either 
haste or neglect, its children are not allowed 
to revel in the world's imaginings. Premature 
senility is the effect of an undeveloped imagi- 
nation in child or nation. 



22 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

We may approach our subject by naming 

certain illustrations of stories that will naturally 

be in the minds of story-tellers. The 

Illustra- ... ,.„ pixT 

tions of primitive life of the Indian is portrayed 
in the epic Hiawatha. The animal 
world as envisaged by the negro imagination 
is presented in Uncle Remus. The early Saxon 
life is embodied in the grand epic of Beowulf. 
The marvellous prehistoric civilization of Greece 
appears in Homer. The exuberant Oriental 
imagination has fashioned for the world's chil- 
dren the Arabian Nights. For moral direct- 
ness the Hebrew stories preserved in the Old 
Testament, likewise Oriental, are incompar- 
able. Then there are the cosmogonies of prim- 
itive peoples, as in Hesiod, the mythologies of 
Greece, and the Norse sagas. The fables of 
iEsop, despite the hcec fabula docet, satisfy a 
boy's mind at a certain age, as many adults can 
testify. La Fontaine is a good second to 
iEsop. The Middle Ages, welding new peoples 
with an older civilization, produced the Span- 
ish Cid, the French Chanson de Roland, the 
German Niebelungen, and the British King 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 23 

Arthur. The term ''story" is so comprehen- 
sive that even ordinary illustrations, examples, 
incidents, and happenings may be used for 
the purposes of story -telling, though they neces- 
sarily lack the racial flavor so essential for best 
results. 

If we search through the preceding illustra- 
tions with a view to finding the genus of liter- 
ature to which they belong and the 

. . Definition 

marks distmguishmg the story from of the 
other species of the same genus, as the 
logic of definition requires us to do, we may 
agree to define the story as a free narration^ 
not necessarily factual hut truthful in character. 
The story is not history, though there may be 
historical stories, but it is an imaginative inven- 
tion. The terms "story" and "history" are 
indeed derived from the same root, meaning 
inquiry and what is learned thereby, but for 
us history tells us what happened at a definite 
place and time, while the story tells us only 
what might have happened at some indefinite 
place and time. What Aristotle said of poetry 
in comparison with history is also true of the 



24 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

story, — poetry, he said, is truer than history. 
This paradox is resolvable if we compare the 
poetry of Homer with the history of Herodotus ; 
the one is universal, the other is local. The 
story gives us human nature in its bold out- 
lines ; history, in its individual details. Simi- 
larly Canon Cheyne has remarked in compar- 
ing the Psalms with the Acts: ''Good as the 
truth of history may be, the truth of poetry 
may for purposes of edification be even better." 
Truth is stranger than good fiction just because 
the fiction is bound by the traits of universal 
human nature, whereas truth is bound only by 
the individual facts which vary widely from 
the general average. Nothing in all Tolstoi's 
novels, highly imaginative as they are, is quite 
so strange as his own actual exit from this 
world. The story as a narrative is free, be- 
cause it is not bound by spatial and temporal 
details, as is history, but the story is truthful 
in character because it portrays human nature 
as it is generally. We are not concerned with 
the country in which "Cinderella" lived or the 
year in which the "Ugly Duckling" was born. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 25 

The distinction which the definition makes 
between the factual and the imaginative is 
emphasized because the child's mind at about 
six years of age begins to make the same dis- 
tinction. Those telling stories to young chil- 
dren will often have had the question put to 
them by the inquiring mind of some child : 
"Did it really happen?" In answering this 
question it is very important not to label the 
the story as history. When the child's mind 
has distinguished between fancy and fact, it is 
time for parent and teacher to do the same. To 
say frankly: "It is only a story" will, on the 
one hand, not detract much from the child's 
pleasure in it, while, at the same time, it helps 
him realize his real world ; besides, it will later 
prevent the process of undermining his faith, 
sure to follow upon the early blind acceptance 
of the story as literally true. Follow nature's 
leading in making the transition from child- 
hood's natural credulity to manhood's natural 
criticism. A fond father said to his little girl : 
" Come here and let me tell you how God made 
the world." She said, with open eyes, "Papa, 



26 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

do you know?" "I know a story that tells," 
was the satisfying answer. When children are 
disappointed that the story is not really true, 
they may be told realistic, factual, historic 
narratives instead. 

Closely associated with the definition of 
the story is the account of its form. Inde- 
pendent of the content which the 

The Form . i i • i 

of the story carries, and which may vary 

from history to nonsense, is the form 
of the story which is practically the same in 
all stories. The content is varied and par- 
ticular, the form is the same and universal. 
Now there are four main elements in the form 
of each story, viz. the beginning, the develop- 
ment, the climax, and the end. In this re- 
spect the story is very much like the drama 
with its four or five acts, first setting forth the 
characters, then unwinding the plot, then the 
climax, and finally the results. As Professor 
St. John ^ expresses it: "To summarize, every 
good story must have a beginning that rouses 
interest, a succession of events that is orderly 

1 E. P. St. John, Stories and Story-Telling, p. 13, Boston, 1910. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 27 

and complete, a climax that forms the story's 
point, and an end that leaves the mind at rest." 
To fix these four features of the story's form 
in mind will help us understand the nature of 
the story, will help us also to remember it and 
to tell it again. It is better not to memorize 
the words of a story, leaving something to 
spontaneity in the telling, but the framework of 
the story we are to tell should be in mind. 

For example, in Hawthorne's story : ''The 
Great Stone Face," the beginning acquaints 
us with the Great Stone Face, Ernest, his 
mother, and the prophecy; the development 
brings before us Gathergold, Old Blood-and- 
Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz, as well as the 
poet ; the climax is reached in the exclamation 
of the poet: "Behold! Behold! Ernest is him- 
self the likeness of the Great Stone Face"; 
and the end shows us the effect on Ernest of 
the recognition. The four elements in the form 
of the story can be similarly found in other 
familiar stories. 

It follows from the definition of the story 
that its purpose is not primarily to give infor- 



28 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

mation, but to nurture the soul; that is, to 
expand the imagination, to widen the sym- 
ThePur- pathies, to give pure pleasure. The 
stonr-^ story is the child's vicarious experi- 
teiiing ^j^^g ^f reality, that is, it is an im- 
aginative substitute for real experience. The 
story as an art form of literature is a thing of 
beauty primarily. It should be told for the 
joy it gives to the narrator and the listener. 
Whatever information it carries, even what- 
ever conduct it prompts, are incidental, though 
important, accompaniments of the story as told. 
Tell the story well and it will unlock to you the 
child's heart and, by nurturing his soul, it will 
prepare him to understand and enjoy all litera- 
ture as an exposition of life. Many subjects in 
our curriculum as taught repress individuality 
and personality; the story cultivates both. 

Professor St. John ^ distinguishes seven aims 
in story-telling, as follows : to entertain, to 
guide reading, for language-study, for intel- 
lectual discipline, for illustration, for aesthetic 
culture, and for character-formation. 

1 E. P. St. John, Stories and Story-Telling, Chap. XI. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 29 

These seven are all phases of the one great 
aim of soul-development. In the words of the 
great modern inspirer of story-tellers, Froebel : 
"Ear and heart open to the genuine story- 
teller, as the blossoms open to the sun of spring 
and to the vernal rain. Mind breathes mind; 
power feels power, and absorbs it, as it were. 
The telling of stories refreshes the mind as a 
bath refreshes the body; it gives exercise to 
the intellect and its powers ; it tests the judg- 
ment and the feelings."^ It is characteristic of 
Froebel to use such expressions as "mind 
breathes mind, power feels power"; they seem 
vague, but the real story-teller knows there is 
a meaning in the words. 

Lincoln illustrates the more practical uses 
to which story-telling may be put. Richard 
Watson Gilder ^ presents this side of 

Lincoln as 

the great story-teller as follows : a story- 
teller 
"Colonel Burt reports a strange m- 

terview with Lincoln at the Soldiers' Home at 

a time of keen anxiety and when a person 

1 Froebel, Education of Man, p. 307 (Hailman Tr.), N. Y., 1900. 

2 "Lincoln the Leader," Century, Feb., 1909. 



30 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

present had rudely demanded one of his 'good 
stories.' 'I believe,' said Lincoln, turning 
away from the challenger, *I have the popular 
reputation of being a story-teller, but I do not 
deserve the name in its general sense ; for it is 
not the story itself, but its purpose, or effect, 
that interests me. I often avoid a long and 
useless discussion by others or a laborious 
explanation on my own part by a short story 
that illustrates my point of view. So, too, the 
sharpness of a refusal, or the edge of a rebuke, 
may be blunted by an appropriate story, so 
as to save wounded feeling and yet serve the 
purpose. No, I am not simply a story-teller, 
but story-telling as an emollient saves me much 
friction and distress.' " Many another leader 
of men has found with Lincoln the great value 
of the story ''as an emollient," especially if it 
be of the humorous type. To end an unsatis- 
factory conference with a pleasantry is to rise 
above it. This characteristic use of the story 
made by Lincoln may be illustrated by the 
following from Major W. S. Hubbell, famous 
as a teller of civil war tales : 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 31 

Lincoln one day was visited by three men with a new 
gun device. Lincoln sent them to Secretary Stanton, 
who sent them back to Lincoln, who then sent them to a 
Congressional committee. After pursuing the Presi- 
dent for some time, Lincoln finally stopped them before 
they began to speak of their invention. He had them sit 
down and then said : 

"Let me tell you a story. This story is about a little 
boy who had to memorize the story in the Bible about the 
three men in the fiery furnace. He could not remember 
their names and got a last chance under a threat. The 
boy began well, but when he came to the three hard 
names, broke down and cried: * There come those three 
old bores again.'" Lincoln finished the story there, and 
looked smilingly at the three inventors. 

The importance of the story as an educa- 
tional instrument arises from three consider- 
ations, viz. its having been the tool 

' . . . Thelmpor- 

of primitive man, its being the sim- tance of 

the Story 
plest vehicle of truth, and its being 

so flexible a literary form. 

The story is primitive man's tool for trans- 
mitting his reactions upon his world. The 
first history and the first literature 

The Tool 

are stories. "It [History] was doubt- ofPruni- 

less discovered m the first mstance by 

the story-teller, and its purpose has usually 



S2 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

been to tell a tale rather than to contribute to 
a well-considered body of scientific knowl- 
edge." ^ Such primitive transmission is oral, 
all unessential details drop oflF in the process 
of repetition generation after generation. The 
world of primitive man is partly natural and 
partly human, and so his stories include both 
myths and legends. The myth is his reac- 
tion upon the natural world and legend his 
reaction upon the human world, especially the 
past of his own tribe or people. An illustra- 
tion of the story as the tool of primitive man 
we see in the following quotation from one who 
knows by experience. 

"Very early, the Indian boy assumed the 
task of preserving and transmitting the legends 
of his ancestors and race. Almost every eve- 
ning a myth, or a true story of some deed done 
in the past, was narrated by one of the parents 
or grandparents, while the boy listened with 
parted lips and glistening eyes. On the fol- 
lowing evening, he was usually required to 
repeat it. If he was not an apt scholar, he 

1 J. H. Robinson, The New History, p. 27, N. Y., 1912. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 33 

struggled long with his task ; but, as a rule, the 
Indian boy is a good listener and has a good 
memory, so that the stories were tolerably well 
mastered. The household became his audi- 
ence, by which he was alternately criticized and 
applauded."^ 

We must not thoughtlessly identify present 
savages with primitive man, yet present sav- 
ages do provide us with many concrete illus- 
trations of what we know to be true of primi- 
tive man. Thus an African missionary writes 
of his experiences in a native village : "We will 
now ask the king for some stories, and you 
will find that he has an abundance of them. 
The Bulu have a wealth of spoken literature, 
rich in fables and fairy tales. They love them 
and will take delight in relating them to 
you by the hour, if you have time to listen. 
Even the little children are well versed in 
these. They have their own story of the cre- 
ation and fall of man, of the good and bad 
hereafter, all of which are intensely odd and 
interesting." 

1 C. A. Eastman. Indian Boyhood, p. 51, N. Y., 1902. 



34 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

The fact that the story is the product of 
priraitive man explains in part why the chil- 
dren hunger so for the story and find their 
keenest satisfaction in the racial stories. The 
modern child individual is calling for the soul- 
food of the ancient child race of primitive men. 
To deny them this pabulum is to dwarf the 
soul-stature and to induce premature maturity. 

Second, we said the story is important be- 
cause it is the simplest vehicle of instruction 
The Sim- ^^^ undeveloped and untutored minds. 
Vehicle of ^^ ^^^ ^^^ modcs of Comprehension 
Truth ^£ minds just feeling their powers as 

nothing else does, making little draft upon the 
abstract and intellectual functions of mind. 
The story is an arrow feathered with truth 
finding its way easily to its target. 

In speaking on ''The Place of Formal In- 
_ ., struction in Religious and Moral 

President ^ 

Hau Education" President HalP said con- 

quoted 

cerning the story : 

"Formal moral and religious instruction at home 
should, of course, begin with stories, very simple, brief, 

1 G. Stanley Hall, Proc. R. E. A., 1905, pp. 69-70. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 35 

and oft-repeated at first, and rapidly increasing in num- 
ber, kind and complexity, as the child's intelligence 
expands. Stories are the oldest form of transmitted cul- 
ture and the most formative. All should have a moral 
more and more disguised and implicit as the child ad- 
vances in years, but the moral should be ever present 
for sentiments, will, or both. I suspect and challenge 
the word 'formal' in my topic if it involves, as it does 
with too many pedagogues, anything methodic. It 
should at first be as free as possible from every element of 
didacticism, systematic sequence, or the drill factors of 
the precisian. Form should be utterly subordinate to 
content, and the tales should be of the greatest possible 
number and variety. Young children need elemental 
story-roots, picturing all the elemental good and evil in the 
w^orld ; all these, of which the kindergarten has a very pre- 
cious kit, though far too few, too elaborated, and selected 
from too narrow a range, the child needs, and for these its 
moral appetite is voracious. Every mother should be a 
story-teller and het repertory should be large, well-chosen, 
and ever replenished, and the father should take his 
turn. What else was the twilight hour, and the fire- 
place (where that still survives !) made for ? Tales are 
the natural soul-food of children, their native breath 
and vital air; but our children are too often story- 
starved or charged with ill-chosen or ill-adapted twaddle 
tales. Good tales, well told, preform the moral choices 
of adult life aright. Many Bible stories are among the 
best, but these are not enough and there are not enough 
adapted to any age, so we should go outside, and draw 
on other sources. 



36 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Third, the importance of the story is made 
manifest in that as a Hterary form it lends 
TheAdap- itself to any content. The story is not 
the^story's ^istory, but there may be historic 
^°"^ stories ; the story is not science, but 

there may be scientific stories ; the story is 
not ethics, but there may be moral stories. 
When history, science, and ethics drop their 
generalizations, become concrete, appeal to 
the imagination and to the feelings, exciting 
admiration or censure, and prompting changes 
in conduct, they become stories. What his- 
tory becomes as story Plutarch can show; 
what science becomes as story modern animal 
stories illustrate, e,g., those of Thompson Seton ; 
and what ethics becomes as story ^sop and 
La Fontaine witness. By adopting this form 
history, science, and ethics lose nothing for 
the child, though they do for the adult, and gain 
much for all. For further illustrations of the 
use of the story in historic and moral instruc- 
tion, see the references to the works of Miss 
Gowdy and Mr. Gould respectively at the end 
of this chapter. In view of the significance of 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 37 

the story to the primitive mind of the race and 
of the child, of its truth-carrying power, and 
of the flexibihty of its Uterary form, we reahze 
the importance of the story ; and in view of the 
importance of the story, should we fail as parents 
and teachers and friends of children to culti- 
vate the story-teller's art? 

The good story is the one that appeals to the 
unperverted taste of children. Even the stories 
that appeal to perverted tastes, such character- 
as the dime-novel hero and the mawk- q^IY 
ishly sentimental heroine, have some ^*°^ 
good qualities. What are the characteristics 
that make a story go ? Miss Bryant ^ finds 
them to be three, — "action, in close sequence ; 
familiar images tinged with mystery; some 
degree of repetition." St. John ^ also empha- 
sizes the quality of action in a good story, and 
adds two other characteristics : suggestiveness 
and unity. Haslett ^ also mentions action, 
suggestiveness, and unity, as well as a number 



1 S. C. Bryant, How to Tell Stories to Children, p. 48. 

2 E. P. St. John, Stories and Story-Telling, Chap. V. 

» S. B. Haslett, Pedagogical Bible School, pp. 244-245. 



88 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

of other characteristics, such as plot, narra- 
tive, richness of material, adherence to original, 
moral and character elements, and emotional 
coloring. 

Mr. Chesterton^ has shown us the impor- 
tance of ''adherence to original." Through 
lack of such adherence, Milton, Goethe, and 
Wagner are guilty, he thinks, of spoiling good 
stories. Of Milton's "Paradise Lost" he says, 
"The story, as it stands in the Bible, is infi- 
nitely more sublime and delicate." Of Goethe's 
Faust he says: "The old Faust is damned for 
doing a great sin ; but the new Faust is saved 
for doing a small sin — a mean sin." Likewise 
the old story makes Tannhauser go away in 
despair of being pardoned, while Wagner makes 
him return repentant a second time. "If 
that is not spoiling a story, I do not know what 
is." The point is that the old stories represent 
a simplicity and directness of moral quality 
which is softened into weakness in the later 
modifications. The originals represent racial 
experiences, the unfaithful copies show indi- 

^ Quoted in Literary Digest, "Spoiling Good Stories," April 16, 1910. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 39 

vidual opinions. Not that the story-teller 
should memorize the words of the original, 
but that he should retain its main qualities. 
The racial stories orally transmitted for gen- 
erations are best just because they have lost 
in the process all that is not typical. 

In addition to all the many qualities above 
indicated, we may note that good stories are 
very human, very concrete, very intelligible, 
and universal in their appeal. Human, be- 
cause they are racial products; concrete, be- 
cause the primitive mind did not express itself 
abstractly ; intelligible, because of the elemen- 
tary ideas conveyed and feelings aroused; 
and universal, in their appeal because adults 
are children grown up without having lost 
entirely their ancestral inheritance. The four- 
page story of Dickens, "A Child's Dream of a 
Star," reveals several of these characteristics, 
such as quick action, the suggestion of the 
mysterious about the familiar, repetition, unity, 
plot, narrative, emotional coloring, character 
elements, concreteness, intelligibility, and uni- 
versal appeal. Some of these traits can be 



40 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

found in all the stories that children espe- 
cially like. 

Story-telling is an art, a fine art. As in the 
case of other arts, the gift for story-telling 
How to Tell i^ust be inborn, but in addition the 
a story ^j^^. J,eq^JJ.gg cultivation. We can dis- 
pense neither with heredity nor with train- 
ing. But in giving directions for training 
ourselves in this art, we must limit ourselves 
to general principles of guidance, omitting too 
specific and detailed formulas, which would 
unduly cramp the personality of the story-teller 
and so tend to a mechanical procedure. 

First of all, then, the personality of the story- 
teller must shine through the story, through its 
selection, its narration, and its appre- 

WithPer- ^ ^ ? i-i- 

sonaiMag- ciation. Tell the story with all the 

netism 

personal magnetism you can muster. 
Weave the spell of the story-teller's art. "Once 
upon a time" is itself the magical "Open 
Sesame" to the imagination and interest of 
the children. 

If the story has a setting, get it in your im- 
agination before beginning. It will help your 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 41 

own appreciation of the story and your appreci- 
ation will pass on by contagion to the children. 
The setting of the story is like the j^^j^g 
frame to the picture, setting it off. ^^**^s 
The setting for Jotham's parable of the trees 
is the transition in Israel from a theocracy to 
a monarchy. The setting for Jesus blessing 
little children is the dusty roadside with the 
Master busy teaching and healing and the 
devoted disciples anxious to make his work as 
easy for him as possible. The story should 
not be prefaced formally with the setting, but 
the setting should be in the mind of the story- 
teller and may be informally introduced as the 
narration proceeds. 

Take the point of view of the children as 
you tell the story. Tell it in fact as a child 
would tell it, with improvements. In ^^.^j^^j^^ 
order to do this, you must study the ChUd's 

standpoint 

stories children tell, and see their sim- 
plicity, directness, and swiftly moving action. 
You must also like children and understand 
them. The teacher can more easily adapt 
himself to the child's standard of language and 



42 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

understanding than the child can rise to the 
teacher's standard. H. T. Mark says the 
hunger of the soul is the philosophy of child- 
hood ; if so, the story is the suitable nutrition. 
Think the story as you tell it, even if you 
know it perfectly. The phonograph can re- 

1 imagi- produce a story but it cannot think 
natively j^^ 'pj^g events must be imagined 
vividly as they are narrated; they must be 
seen and heard again. Children think in pic- 
tures and the story-teller must do the same to 
facilitate the passage of the story from mind to 
mind. 

Act the story too, by suggestion, as you tell 
it; by suggestion, not by imitation. The 

2 Dra- movements of animals may be sug- 
maticaiiy gested by gestures, to imitate them 
would spoil the story and suggest a game. 
The action at the high points should be dra- 
matic but with suflScient self-restraint not to 
suggest the stage. Dramatic and funny stories 
especially appeal to children. 

If you both think and act the story as you 
tell it, you are likely also to feel it, and this is 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 43 

highly desirable. Get into the spirit of the 
story and communicate it. As you do so little 
effective additions and omissions will 3 p^^j, 
occur to you spontaneously. At "^^^^ 
such a point you have risen above detail 
and have become a master of the art. 

Further, by attending to these things you 
will have forgotten yourself, which is also nec- 
essary. The story is the thing, not 4 ^^^_ 
the teller. To be self-conscious in any forgetfully 
way is distracting to both the attention and the 
interest of the listeners. 

Finally, if the story have a moral, tell it with 
indirection ; that is, let the moral be implicit, 
and leave the children themselves to 5 ^j^j^ 
assimilate it. ''In vain is the net indirection 
spread in the sight of any bird." This is 
more important as the children grow older. 
The moral that is appended is an anticlimax. 
The approach of Nathan to David with the 
story of the man who had one ewe sheep is a 
model of indirection ; likewise the approach of 
Hamlet to the king with the play within the 
play. So with us, the moral in the story, not 



44 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

of the story, is the thing wherewith we'll catch 
the conscience of the child. 

"To sum it all up, then," says Miss Bryant,* 
"let us say of the method likely to bring suc- 
cess in telling stories, that it includes sympathy, 
grasp, spontaneity; one must appreciate the 
story and know it ; and then, using the realiz- 
ing imagination as a constant vivifying force, 
and dominated by the mood of the story, one 
must tell it with all one's might, — simply, 
vitally, joyously." 

Other characteristics of the good story- 
teller mentioned by Haslett ^ are sincerity and 
purpose, accurate memory, agreeable voice, 
correct use of the mother tongue, the love of 
nature, and a keen insight into the child's 
mental processes. As we hear a story told, we 
might, for the sake of practice, look for as many 
of these characteristics in the telling as we can 
find. At the same time these characteristics 
help us in endeavoring to improve our own art 
as story-tellers. 

1 S. C. Bryant, How to Tell Stories to Children, p. 109. 

2 S. B. Haslett, Pedagogical Bible School, p. 245. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 45 

One of the habits of educational thinking 
of our own time is to emphasize the expres- 
sive in distinction from the impressive ^he 
features of teaching. The teacher im- ^/Jum'^J'^ 

^ of Children 

presses the child, the child expresses on stories 
himself; in the process of self-expression, the 
child requires the guidance of the teacher. 
This emphasis upon expression as the 
mode of development is in harmony ingby 
with the physiological fact that the ''^^®^^'°° 
motor element of the nervous system controls 
the larger muscles of the body, while the sen- 
sory element controls the smaller muscles; 
also with the psychological fact that opinions 
as truly follow in the wake of deeds as deeds 
follow opinions; also with the pragmatic phi- 
losophy which holds that action is of primary 
while ideas are only of secondary importance in 
our world. 

This same habit of educational procedure 
would require us as story-tellers to secure 
reactions of some kind from the children upon 
the stories they have been told. Children like 
to re-tell stories they have enjoyed, and should 



46 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

be encouraged to do so in both home and school. 
It is not to be recommended, however, that chil- 
dren be formally required to tell again 
telling those stories whose prime purpose was 

stories it. • • . • i • 

moral and religious inspiration ; m this 
case the re-telling must take attention away 
from the content and centre it upon the form of 
the story, which tends to remove the inspi- 
rational effect. In all language and literary 
study the re-telling has its proper place. 

Another way of securing reactions upon 
stories from children is to let them illustrate 
3 nius- ^^^ story with seat work, such as draw- 
trating jj^g^ pasting illustrative pictures cut 
from magazines, cutting out figures, clay- 
modelling, etc. In all these ways the children 
get the story into their muscles. As Froebel 
says, '* Therefore, with boys of this age, the 
hearing of stories should always be connected 
with some activity for the production of some 
external work on their part."^ Froebel was a 
master of children himself and we should at- 
tend carefully to this injunction from him. 

1 Oy. dt, p. 309. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 47 

Still another way of securing reactions upon 
stories from children is to let them act out the 
story, involving the dramatic feature. 4 t^q 
The art of dramatizing stories is re- f^l^^f^^' 
ceiving increasing attention in our day. s*®^^®^ 
It is a wonderfully educative procedure. Why ? 

To begin with, children are naturally imita- 
tors, mimics, and actors. The dramatic ten- 
dency is strong in them. They like to imper- 
sonate people and even lower animals. This 
tendency is reenforced by whatever they may 
have seen on the stage or at the moving pic- 
ture shows. Acting out the story is a new way 
of self-expression to children. At times they 
should be allowed themselves freely to throw 
the story material into dramatic form, thus 
stimulating interest and ability in the composi- 
tion of dialogue. 

There is likewise an emotional value in play- 
ing a part through the widening of sympathy 
that comes from putting oneself in another's 
place. 

Some intellectual values are likewise present 
in the dramatizing process, such as vividness 



48 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

of the story material gained by representation, 
fixation of the material in memory, and the 
cultivation of the imagination. Certain sub- 
jects, like history, especially profit by the use 
of the dramatic art, and the more so if costum- 
ing suitable to the period is utilized. 

In addition it interests the parents to have 
their children appear in school plays, espe- 
cially if requisition is made on the home 
for costumes. On the whole, whether we 
go into the dramatizing of stories very 
simply or elaborately, it is a school art we 
cannot afiFord entirely to neglect in our story 
work. 

The story has a proper place in all subjects 
through all grades of education, from kinder- 
The Place g^rtcn to professional graduate school ; 
stoJ^^in ^^ incidental place, perhaps, but none 
Education ^j^^ j^gg influential for being so. It is 
probably better to use a story in any subject 
when the occasion calls for it than to formalize 
the story-telling by using it only at a sched- 
uled hour. The subjects that lend themselves 
particularly to story-telling are nature-study. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 49 

literature, history, and morals. It were well 
if a given school system assigned certain stories 
to certain grades, to secure proper adaptation 
of the stories to the experience of the children, 
to prevent undue repetition, and to acquaint 
the succeeding teacher with the story material 
the children have already had. Miss Tobey's 
suggestions on this point are included at the 
end of this chapter. 

For those who would become adept story- 
tellers, as all fathers, mothers, and 

Parting 

teachers should do, a few parting sug- Sug- 
gestions 
gestions may be ventured. The first 

is to read and assimilate the racial stories, to 

do which is .to give ourselves the i. Read 

the Racial 

understanding and appreciation of stories 
the primitive mind which the child represents. 
Another is to study the principles of story- 
telling as students have abstracted 

* ^ 2. Study 

them from the best practice of the the Prin- 
ciples of 

ages. To assist readers in finding story- 
telling 

stories to tell as well as studies m how 

to tell them, a list of references is appended to 
this chapter. 



50 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Still another suggestion is to practise inter- 
minably and practise intelligently. As you 
practise study the qualities of the 
story that make it go as well as those 
that cause it to lag. Criticise your own work, 
and seek to improve upon it. In a public 
address Kate Douglas Wiggin, called "the 
owner of the golden key to childhood" by 
Hamilton Wright Mabie, said: ''If one has 
ever told stories to children, one realizes that 
the main thing is to keep them from wriggling ; 
for once they commence, all inspiration vanishes. 
When you have told a story that does this, you 
have done your Homeric best." 

Finally the warning suggested by the dis- 
cussion of fact and fancy in stories at the out- 
set may here be repeated, viz. tell as 
little to be little as possible that children must 

Unlearned p i i • • 

later unlearn. In case of doubt it is 
better to err on the side of calling fact fancy 
than of calling fancy fact. The danger in 
the process of unlearning is that it may over- 
reach itself and call the verities into equal 
question. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 51 

One real problem of the teacher is how to 
keep young though growing old. There is an 
attractiveness about growing old and youth and 
going on, if it can be done in the right ^2® 
way, as with Browning's Rabbi Ben Ezra. 
There is also an attractiveness about remaining 
young and enjoying with Wordsworth the chil- 
dren that ''sport upon the shore." But how 
to do both at the same time.^^ The story is 
the answer, for it is both as young as the child 
and as old as the race. The story will develop 
the children and at the same time preserve 
the story-teller. 

The place of the story in the family circle 
is akin to that of music. In the now out-of- 
print and sole novel of Sidney Lanier, 

Lanier, on 
the musical poet of America after Poe, Music in 

he wrote concerning a home : ^ ''Given 

the raw materials, to wit, wife, children, a 

friend or two, and a house, — two other things 

are necessary. These are a good fire and good 

music. And inasmuch as we can do without 

the fire for half the year, I may say that music 

1 Quoted in Painter, Poets of the South, p. 87, N. Y., 1903. 



52 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

is the one essential. After the evening spent 
around the piano, or the flute, or the viohn, 
how warm and how chastened is the kiss with 
which the family all say good night! Ah, the 
music has taken all the day cares and thrown 
them into its terrible alembic and boiled them 
and rocked them and cooled them, till they 
are crystallized into one care, which is a most 
sweet and rare desirable sorrow — the yearning 
for God." For those who have tried it, the story 
has the same cleansing effect. 

A contemporary writer, McLandburgh Wil- 
son, has the following lines on "The Rarest 
Time": 

Love will often come again. 

Though the first be best ; 
Second childhood comes to men. 

Though 'tis robbed of zest. 
Opportunity comes back. 

Only changing guise ; 
Through the centuries return 

Comets in the skies. 
History repeats itself, 

Rings again its chime ; 
But the fairies only come 

Once upon a time. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 53 

REFERENCES ON STORIES AND STORY-TELLING 

I. Where to Find Stories 

1. Alden, Why the Chimes Rang. Bobbs-Merrill Co. 

2. Bailey and Lewis, For the Story Hour. Milton Bradley Co. 

3. Baldwin, J., Fifty Famous Stories. Book Supply Co. 

4. Baldwin, J., Old Stories of the East. N. Y., 1896. 

5. Beckwith, M. H., In Mytliland. Boston, 1896. 

6. Bennett and Adeney, Bible Story Retold for Young 

People. The Maemillan Co. 

7. Bird, R., One Hundred Bible Stories for Children. N. Y., 

1911. 

8. Brooklyn Public Library, Books That Girls Like. A 

Pamphlet List. 

9. Bryant, S. C, Stories to Tell to Children. Boston, 1907. 

10. Burnett, The Land of the Blue Flower. Moffat, Yard & Co. 

11. Canton, Child's Book of Saints. N. Y., 1907. 

12. CoE, First Book of Stories. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

13. Coe, Second Book of Stories. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

14. Cooke, F. J., Nature Myths and Stories. Boston, 1895. 

15. CowLES, Stories to Tell. A. Flannagan & Co. 

16. Cragin, L. E., Kindergarten Bible Stories, 2 vols. N. Y., 

1905. 

17. Gaskoin, Mrs. H., Children's Treasury of Bible Stories. 

N. Y., 1896. 

18. GowDY, J. L., Special Days in School. Minneapolis, 1902. 

19. Greene, With Spurs of Gold. Little, Brown & Co. 

20. Harrison, In Storyland. The Central Publishing Co. 

21. Hodges, G., When the King Came. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

22. Hodges, G., The Garden of Eden. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

23. Hodges, G., Saints and Heroes. Henry Holt & Co. 

24. HoLBROOK, Book of Nature Myths. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

25. HowLisTON, Cat Tales and Other Tales. Book Supply Co. 

26. KiNGSLEY, Heroes. Ch^s. Scribner's Sons. 

27. Johnson, Oak Tree Fairy Book. Little, Brown & Co. 

28. Klingensmith, Household Stories. A. Flannagan & Co. 

29. Lang, A., The Green Fairy Book. Longmans, Green & Co. 



54 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

SO. Lang, A., The Blue Fairy Book. Longmans, Green & Co. 

31. Lang, A., The Animal Story Book. Longmans, Green & Co. 

32. Lang, A., The Red Story Book. Longmans, Green & Co. 

33. Lansing, Rhymes and Stories. Ginn & Co. 

34. Lindsay, Mother Stories. Milton, Bradley Co. 

35. Mabie, H. W., Stories Every Child Should Know. Double- 

day, Page & Co. 

36. Mabie, H. W., Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know. 

Doubleday, Page & Co. 

37. Menefee, Child Stories from the Masters. Rand Mc- 

Nally Co. 

38. MouLTON, R. G., Bible Stories for Children. 2 vols. The 

Macmillan Co. 

39. PouLssoN, E., In the Child's World. Milton, Bradley Co. 

40. PouLssoN, E., For the Children's Hour. Ginn & Co. 

41. PYiiE, The Wonder Clock. Harper Bros. 

42. Richards, L., The Silver Crown. Boston, 1906. 

43. Richards, L., The Golden Windows. Little, Brown & Co. 

44. ScuDDER, H. E., Book of Legends. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

45. ScuDDER, H. E., Fables and Folk Stories. Houghton 

Mifflin Co. 

46. Speer, R. E., Servants of the King. N. Y., 1909. 

47. Storr, Half a Hundred Hero Tales. Henry Holt & Co. 

48. Tappan, E. V. (Ed.), The Children's Hour. 10 vols. 

Boston, 1907. 

49. Underhill, T. D., The Dwarf's Tailor. N. Y., 1896. 

50. WiGGiN and Smith, The Story Hour. Houghton Mifflin Co. 

51. WiGGiN AND Smith, Tales of Laughter. Doubleday, Page 

& Co. 

52. Wyche, R. T., Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them. 

N. Y., 1910. 

II. How TO Tell Stories 

1. Allen, Ezra, The Pedagogy of Myth in the Grades. Ped. 

Sent., Vol. VIII. 

2. Baker, F. T., "Literature, Children's," Art. in Monroe's 

Cyclopaedia of Education. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 55 

3. Bryant, S. C, How to Tell Stories to Children. Boston, 

1905. 

4. Chamberlain, A. F., Folk Lore in the Schools. Ped. Sem., 

Vol. VII. Has bibliography. 

5. Dye, Charity, The Story-Teller's Art. Boston, 1898. 

6. Fenelon, Education of Girls, Chap. VI. Boston, 

1891. 

7. Gould, F. J., Moral Instruction, Its Theory and Practice. 

N. Y., 1913. 

8. Haslett, S. B., The Pedagogical Bible School. N. Y., 

1903. 

9. Houghton, L. S., Telling Bible Stories. Scribner. 

10. Houghton, L. S., "The Use of the Story," Proc. R. E. A., 

1907, pp. 239-243. 

11. Keyes, Angela M., Stories and Story-Telling. Appleton. 

12. Lawrence, W. W., Mediaeval Story. Columbia Univ. 

Press, 1911. 

13. Lyman, Edna, Story-Telling. Chicago, 1910. 

14. Moore, Annie E., "Story-Telling," Art. in Monroe's 

Cyclopssdia of Education. 

15. MouLTON, R. G., "The Art of Tellmg Bible Stories," 

Proc. R. E. A., 1904, pp. 26-30. 

16. Partridge, E..N. and G. E., Story-Telling in School and 

Home. Sturgis & Walton. 

17. Shedlock, Miss, The Art of Story-Telling. 

18. Smith, Nora A., "Story-Telling in the Kindergarten," 

Proc. N. E. A., 1889. 

19. St. John, E. P., Stories and Story-Telling. The Pilgrim 

Press. 

20. ToBEY, Marian E., Story List for Primary Grades. The 

Elmira School Bulletin, Vol. V, No. 1. 

21. Williams, L. A., "The Function of the Story in the High 

School." The Story -Teller's Magazine, Vol. II, No. 3. 

III. Lists of Graded Stories 

From Miss Tobey's article on "Story Lists for Primary 
Grades" in the Elmira School Bulletin, Vol. V, No. 1. 



56 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

SUB-PRIMARY STORY LIST 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff. 

The Old Woman and Her Pig. 

The Three Bears. 

The Pancake. 

The Gingerbread Boy. 

The House That Jack Built. 

Chicken Little. 

The Pig Brother. 

The Little Red Hen That Found the Grain of Wheat. 

The Ant and the Grasshopper. 

The Dog and His Shadow. 

The Fox and the Little Red Hen. 

Town Mouse and City Mouse. 

The Town Musicians. 

The Hill and the Little Boy. 

Five Peas in a Pod. 

The Lion and the Mouse. 

Billy Boy. 

The Cat Learns to Dance. 

Bellmg the Cat. 

Little Red Riding Hood. 

The Straw, the Coal, and the Bean. 

The Little Plant. 

The Three Little Pigs. 

Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse. 

FIRST-GRADE STORIES 

Little Mouse Pie. 

Poplar Tree. 

The Anxious Leaf. 

The Little Jackal and the Alligator. 

The Crane Express. 

The Elves and the Shoemaker. 

The Boy Who Cried "Wolf, Wolf." 

Epaminondas and His Auntie. 

The Foolish Weathervane. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 57 

The Goose and the Golden Eggs. 

Little Half-Chick. 

The Fox and the Grapes. 

How the Chipmunk Got His Stripes. 

The Discontented Pine Tree. 

Briar Rose. 

One Good Trick. 

The Blind Man and the Lame Man. 

The Lion and the Jackals. 

Johnny Cake. 

The Sleeping Apple. 

The Thrifty Squirrel. 

Lambikin. 

The Hare and the Tortoise. 

Jack and the Beanstalk. 

Timothy's Shoes. 

The Brownies. 

Little Black Sambo. 

SECOND-GRADE STORIES 

Why the Evergreen Trees Keep Their Leaves. 

The Wind and the Sun. 

Goldenrod and the Aster. 

Little Pink Rose. 

Dog in the Manger. 

Jack the Giant-Killer. 

The Fox m the Well. 

One Eye, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes. 

Puss-in-Boots. 

Sleeping Beauty. 

Snow- White and Rose-Red. 

How the Robin Got His Red Breast. 

Midas and the Golden Touch. 

North Wind. 

Why the Sea Is Salt. 

The Little Jackal and the CameL 

The Little Jackal and the Lion. 



58 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Kinkach Martinko. 

King Solomon and the Ants. 

The Crow and the Cheese. 

The Honest Woodman. 

Hop-o'-my-Thumb. 

Cinderella. 

Peter Rabbit. 

How Brother Rabbit Fooled the Whale and the Elephant. 

How Mrs. White Hen Helped Rose. 

THIRD-GRADE STORIES 

The Legend of Arbutus. 

Beauty and the Beast. 

Bluebeard. 

The Engine Story. 

The Shut-up Posy. 

Rumpel-stilts-kin. 

The Brave Tin Soldier. 

The Feast of the Lanterns. 

The Golden Bird and the Good Hare. 

The Frog Prince. 

The Red-Headed Woodpecker. 

Hansel and Gretel. 

Match Girl. 

Toads and Diamonds. 

Bruce and the Spider. 

Nuremberg Stove. 

The Star Dollars. 

Hans, Who Made the Princess Laugh. 

The White Cat. 

Narcissus. 

The Discontented Mill Wmdow. 

The Lost Child. 

Sinbad, the Sailor. 

Apple-Seed John. 

The Enchanted Horse. 

The Pot of Gold. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 59 

The Enchanted Wine Jug, or Why the Cat and Dog Are Enemies. 

The Red Shoes. 

The Six Swans. 

Ugly Duckling. 

Classic Myths — Clytie, Etc. 

FOURTH-GRADE STORIES 

The Last Lesson. 

The Knights of the Silver Shield. 

Why the Chimes Rang (Alden). 

William Tell. 

King Alfred and the Beggar. 

King Alfred and the Cakes.^ 

Jason and the Golden Fleece. 

Adventures of Ulysses. 

Aladdin and His Lamp. 

Robin Hood. 

Hercules. 

Theseus. 

Orpheus and Eurydice. 

Iduna's Garden. 

Iduna's Fall. 

Iduna's Return. 

The Beautiful Apples. 

Cadmus and the Dragon's Teeth. 

Expedition of the Argonauts. 

How Thor Found His Hammer, and other Norse tales. 

Siegfried's Adventures. 

Prometheus. 

Balder and the Mistletoe. 

Toomai of the Elephants (Kipling). 

Rikki-tikki-tavi (Eapling) . 

Sinbad's Voyage, or How Apollo Got His Lyre. 

Rip Van Winkle. 

The Pied Piper. 

Perseus. 

Achilles. 



60 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Darius. 

Pandora's Box. 

The Nightingale. 

How the Camel Got His Hump, 

The Elephant Child. 

Pan and Apollo. 

Damon and Pythias. 

Cornelia and Her Jewels. 

The Burning of the Rice Fields. 

King of the Golden River. 

Questions on the Art of Story-Telling 

1. Why is civilization hard on story- telling .^^ 

2. What are some signs of a revival of interest in story- 
telling ? 

3. Give six illustrations of racial stories. 

4. Define the story and show the meaning of the definition. 

5. What are the four elements in the form of each story ? 

6. What is the main purpose of story- telling ? Name some 
other aims. Compare Lincoln's use of the story. 

7. Give three reasons why the story is important. 

8. Name as many characteristics of the good story as you can. 

9. Describe eight ways in which a story should be told. 

10. Why is it important that children should re-act on stories 
they have heard ? 

11. Describe several ways in which children may re-act on 
stories. 

12. Discuss fully the educational value of dramatizing stories. 

13. What is the place of the story in education ? 

14. How may one become a better story-teller ? 

15. Why does story-telling help to keep the soul young ? 

16. Which of the books in the reference lists have you read ? 

Suggestions for Further Study 

1. Compare the form of the story with that of the drama. 

2. Compare the story with the essay as to concreteness of 
presentation. Illustrate. 



THE ART OF STORY-TELLING 61 

3. Work out the four elements in the form of the story as 
they appear in three stories you tell your class. 

4. What results do you achieve by story-telling ? 

5. What is some of the folk-lore of your community ? 

6. Why are children so interested in stories? 

7. In what consists your own weakness as a story-teller ? 

8. Why is it better to tell than to read a story ? 

9. What have you noticed as to the repetition by children 
of stories they have heard? 

10. Is a story-teller born or made ? 

11. Can you illustrate from your own case having to unlearn 
things once told you ? 

12. Distinguish legend, myth, and fairy story. 

13. Why does the advance of science not tend to displace 
works of imagination ? 

14. What are the eflFects on children of reading too many 
stories? Of reading stories too advanced for them? Of read- 
ing only "children's stories"? 

15. Was Aristotle right in saying "poetry is truer than his- 
tory"? Wliy? 

16. Characterize the method of story-telling of some person 
you know. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ART OF QUESTIONING ^ 

In his most important dialogue and the 
most important ancient document on educa- 
tion, the Republic, Plato wrote: 

Plato on 

Question- ''Then you will enact that they [the 
ing 

rulers] shall have such an education 

as will enable them to attain the greatest skill 
in asking and answering questions." ^ Plato 
appreciated the value of such skill through 
having been for eight years a pupil of the 
incomparable questioner, Socrates. In fact, 
the questions of Socrates gave rise to the 
dialectic philosophy of Plato and to the dia- 
logue form into which it was cast, whence in 
turn came the mediseval disputations and the 
modern debates, dialogues, and other forms of 
"the Socratic Art." But teachers have not 

^ This chapter is rewritten from three short papers that appeared in 
The Pilgrim Teacher, Boston, March, April, and May, 1903. 
2 Repubhc (Jowett Tr.), 534 D. 

62 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 63 

yet attained that skill in questioning which 
Plato desired. To him questioning was the 
preferred method of teaching the most advanced 
subject, — dialectic, or the knowledge of the 
ultimate ideas. As it was by questioning that 
Socrates developed the concept, so it was by 
questioning that Plato reached the ideas, which 
to him were the only absolute realities. 

The phases of this art in teaching that will 
engage us successively are: the importance of 
questioning, the purposes of ques- 

. Outline of 

tionmg, the kinds of questions that this 
teachers may ask, the manner of ques- 
tioning, the form of the question, the content 
of the question, the questioner himself, the an- 
swer, and certain illustrations of great ques- 
tioners, including Socrates and Jesus. This 
is a large outlay, but perhaps no larger than 
the relative importance of the subject itself 
warrants. 

If we inquire whether the exalted position 
assigned questioning in teaching by Plato in 
the quotation above and the history of edu- 
cation be justified, we are left in no doubt in 



64 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

the light of reason. Questioning is one of the 
supreme methods by which a maturer mind 
Theim- ^^^ assist a learner's growing men- 
Qne^ion-^ taUty. It best enables teacher and 
"^2 pupil to work together, standing in 

contrast both with the lecture method, which 
tends to make pupils passive, and with 

A Main 

Mode of the let-alone method, which leaves 

Teaching 

them unguided. The question both 
guides and stirs to action. 

We begin to realize how important it is to 
question well in teaching when we estimate 
The Time ^hat proportion of our classroom allot- 
it Takes ment of time is devoted to the back- 
and-forth asking and answering between teacher 
and pupils. In all grades of work below uni- 
versity classes and their equivalent, educational 
custom has assigned to the question the burden 
of teaching. A real question is a sign of a 
mind alive, and the question-mark is the best 
symbol of the reaction of man's intelligence on 
his world. 

To question well is to secure attention, 
through the very fact of requiring a response. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 65 

The rising inflection of the voice catches 
the attention through suggesting that a reply 
is expected. The question interests 

. ... An Aid in 

the mind through assigning it some- Securing 

Attention 

thing to do, and, if well asked, it also 
appeals to the mind to show its power. To an 
interesting question one likes to attend ; even 
to an uninteresting question that tests our 
powers we prefer to attend, lest our answer or 
the want of it reveal us to be weaker than we 
are. Thus good questions will win for teachers 
both the involuntary and the voluntary atten- 
tion. 

Further, good questioning secures better class 
management. The class engaged with ques- 
tions being asked by an interested 

^ ; ^ and Class 

teacher has no occasion for disorder. Manage- 
ment 
Managmg a class is never an end in 

itself, but only a means for doing the business 

in hand ; if the problem of managing sinks 

out of sight through the engrossing mental 

activity of teacher and pupil alike, so much 

the better. Good questioning is not the whole 

secret of managing, but it is a part of it. 



66 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Lastly, on the importance of questioning, it 
is enough to say that good questioning is good 
To Ques- teaching. A poor questioner cannot 
isTo Teach ^^ ^ ^^^^ teacher, though he may be 
^®^^ a good lecturer, and a good questioner 

cannot fail altogether as a teacher. For teach- 
ing is the art of stimulating mental growth, 
and nothing does this better than the right kind 
of questioning. Despite the fact that ques- 
tioning as a rule is so poorly done, it is encour- 
aging to us that no one of the teacher's arts is 
so easily improvable by thought and effort as 
this of questioning, and improvement is no- 
where more rewarded in teaching than here. 
Questioning is that one of the arts in teaching 
most easily mechanized, though it cannot be 
completely mechanized. And for all it is so 
important an art and occupies so large a place 
in teaching, it is by no means all there is to 
teaching. 

What are the main purposes in questioning .f^ 
Or, what are the main uses to which questions 
may be put.^^ The answer is important not 
only for its own sake, but for the sake of 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 67 

determining presently the different kinds of 
questions. There are four main purposes for 
which teachers use questions. The 

The Gen- 
first purpose is to secure and to keep erai Pur- 
poses of 
contact with the minds of the class. Question- 
ing 
The second, the largest and most com- 
plex purpose of the four, is to set forward the 
attainment of the class in a given field. The 
third purpose is to review the material covered. 
And the fourth purpose is to examine the class, 
with a view to determining not merely what 
the pupils do not know, but also what they do 
know, what their needs are, and how efficient 
the instruction has been. 

The second 'purpose requires a few further 
words of exposition. In setting forward the at- 
tainment of the class in a given field, several 
things are involved. These are : doing justice 
to the pupil, by both advancing his knowledge 
and developing his initiative, and doing justice 
to the subject. In doing justice to the subject 
the method of questioning has one of its main 
uses. A new subject may be presented not by 
lecture nor by reliance on a text, but by a series 



68 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

of closely connected questions bringing out the 
main features of the new material. It is 
rather a difficult form of questioning to use, 
though, when well done, the results are realistic 
to the class. Ziller and other German Herbar- 
tians have particularly commended it. 

The further details involved in each of these 
four main purposes or uses of questioning will 
appear in our discussion of the corresponding 
kinds of question now to follow. 

We may distinguish the kinds of question, 

according to the four main purposes they serve, 

by the aid of the following names: 

The Kinds ^ , .,. , , , 

of first, the auxiliary ; second, the search- 

ing or heuristic ; third, the review ; and 
fourth, the examinational. Let us briefly de- 
scribe the character and the more detailed 
purposes of each of these kinds of question. 

The very name of the auxiliary question 
indicates its subsidiary character. Its main 
Character purpose is to effect and to keep ad- 
Auxmary justmcut between the teacher and the 
Question ^lass. It is also distinguished from 
the other kinds of question in that it does not 



THE ART OP QUESTIONING 69 

put the pupil on his mettle; it calls for only 
a descriptive answer from him, which in no 
way reflects credit or discredit upon his mental 
attainment or ability. 

The auxiliary question would be illustrated 
by the preliminary inquiries of the class by the 
teacher in order to learn what their „, 

Ulustra- 

previous experience or training had *^°°^ 
been that would suggest the "point of con- 
tact," as Patterson Dubois calls it, between 
pupil and lesson. Also, such questions as, 
"Is there any point in the lesson not clear to 
any member of the class.?" "What is your 
difficulty with this point.?" "Is what I have 
just explained- clear to everybody.?" "Will 
anybody ask me a question on any matter in 
the lesson?" "Why did you make the particu- 
lar mistake you did.?" etc. Naturally such 
auxiliary questions may fall at the beginning, 
in the course of, or at the conclusion of, the 
recitation. In lecturing to older classes par- 
ticularly it is important semi-occasionally to 
stop and ask such questions as, "What point 
tave I just been making.?" "Is there any 



70 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

question?" in order to give passive listeners 
an active role, in order to give warning that 
lecturing does not invite inattention, and also 
to preclude talking ''over the heads" of the 
students. 

As its name indicates, this question goes on 

a quest; "without a quest, no conquest." It 

would discover new truth, or new ap- 

Character 

of the prehension of old truth, or the bearing 

Searching 

or Heuristic of truth on life, or develop unsuspected 
Question 

mental functions. It would also with 
advanced classes lead to mental invention, 
in the formulation of hypotheses, in the ex- 
pression of judgments, in the processes of 
reasoning. As this is probably the most im- 
portant of the four types of question we must 
pay especial attention to its purposes. 

To be specific, we may distinguish five pur- 
poses of the heuristic question, viz. (1) to dis- 
cover what the pupil has learned about the 
lesson, and, in case of conceit of knowledge or 
of the effort to seem to possess what he does 
not, to convince him publicly, in Socratic fash- 
ion, of ignorance. It must be evident to 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 71 

all, however, that this painful process is ani- 
mated by the motive of sympathy and well- 
wishing on the part of the teacher, never by the 
desire to entrap or win a point. 

(2) To discover how the pupil knows, whether 
verbally or really, whether vaguely or definitely, 
whether theoretically or practically, whether 
honestly or dishonestly, etc. In case the man- 
ner of knowledge is unsatisfactory, the teacher 
must show by one question following another 
the more acceptable way. 

(3) To improve the character of knowledge, 
by fixing it through answers and repetition, 
by correcting it as the answers reveal the need 
of correction, by emphasizing essentials and 
neglecting non-essentials. The members of the 
class should never be left in doubt as to what the 
correct answer is, or, in case of a mooted point, 
as to what the teacher personally thinks. 

(4) To train expression in answering. In 
a sense, a secondary sense, it is true that every 
lesson is an English lesson; in any classroom 
slangy or ungrammatical answers and mispro- 
nunciations should not go uncorrected. And 



72 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

the way to correct them is to have the pupil 
repeat the corrected form. This should be 
done by way of parenthesis in other class- 
rooms than the English. It always requires 
tact to make such corrections, and, in the 
case of older pupils, it had better be done in 
private. 

In this connection it should be remarked 
that clarity of expression is dependent not 
simply upon vocabulary, but also upon clarity 
of thinking. To demand simple and clear 
answers is therefore to encourage that sim- 
plicity and clearness of thinking which, as 
Descartes said, the truth demands. 

(5) To develop initiative, self-activity, the 
sense of power, and mental grasp of life. The 
heuristic question goes beyond the known facts 
possessed by the pupil into the region of his 
reaction upon them in terms of judgment and 
reason. To answer a question involving mem- 
ory requires indeed mental activity, but to 
answer a question involving judgment requires 
self-activity, and the answer is self-expression, 
revealing mental quality. A fact remetnbered 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 73 

may be the same for all, a fact judged may 
differ in the case of each pupil. By means of 
the questions that pursue him into the inmost 
recesses of his mentality, that throw the mind 
back upon itself in reflection, the true teacher 
makes the pupil aware of his unsuspected mental 
powers, gives him the joy of self-discovery, and 
becomes himself worthy to be called a follower 
of his heuristic master, Socrates. The heuristic 
question in simple form can be used with the 
lower grades, but its finest fruits appear only 
with the adolescent and mature mind. 

For illustrations of the heuristic question, 
the lists of questions at the end of this and 
the other chapters may be used. The mustra- 
first list in each case refers to the text, *^°°^ 
and the second list, more advanced in char- 
acter, refers to material beyond the text. 
Some heuristic questions on Lincoln's Gettys- 
burg Oration, with which every teacher is 
familiar, would be as follows : 

At the time Lincoln spoke, how old was the American 
Republic ? 

To what proposition was it dedicated at birth ? 



74 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Of what did he say the Civil War was a test ? 
What does he say was the occasion of the gathering to 
which he spoke ? 

Why could they not consecrate that ground ? 

What then should they do ? 

For what purpose should they dedicate themselves ? 

Heuristic questions of a more advanced char- 
acter, going beyond the letter of the Oration, 
would be as follows : 

Upon what occasion was this Oration delivered ? 

Who had just spoken ? 

What in the address itself shows Lincoln was not aware 
he was speaking immortal words ? 

What is the metaphor in the first sentence? 

In what sense is it true that "all men are created 
equal"? 

Try to arrange the Oration as blank verse (see Literary 
Digest, Feb. 26, 1916). 

How would you characterize the style of this Oration ? 

Whence did Lincoln acquire such style ? 

What are some antecedents of the phrase: "Govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, for the people " ? 

Memorize the Oration and try to deliver it as you fancy 
Lincoln did. 

The third kind of question is the one used in 

review. The character of the ques- 

Review tions asked in review should depend on 
Question , r? .i • 

the purposes oi the review. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 75 

Secondary, but real, purposes of the review 
are to memorize by repetition and to drill. 
This type of review is necessary, be- 

Secondary 

cause we do not really know a thing Purposes 

of Review 

until we have learned it, partially for- 
gotten it, and learned it again. Questions 
securing this result will be short, sharp, quick. 
Examples would be, in grade work, ''Who 
discovered America V " When .^ " ' ' Where 
did he first land.^^" "For what was he really 
looking.^" "To what nationality did he be- 
long ,P" "Whence did he sail.?" "Why from 
there .f^" etc. The lower grades will rely mainly 
on such questions. 

But the primary purposes of the review are 
to give perspective and organization to knowl- 
edge. Perspective in a subject in- primary 
volves the larger view that comes with Qf^J^e^^^ 
the review, and organization of knowl- ^®^*®^ 
edge involves logical relationships between 
essentials and details. In historical subjects 
a great aid to perspective is continuity and in 
all subjects the great aid to organization of 
knowledge is some unifying principle. Thus, 



76 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

in reviewing the geography of a continent, the 
central question might be: '*What is the in- 
niustra- fluence on the people of this conti- 
tions nent of the following features, viz. 

climate, mountains, rivers, oceans, plains, forests, 
fertility of the soil, etc. ?" Likewise, in review- 
ing the literature of a given period of a certain 
people, the central question would be, "How 
is the life of the people reflected in the follow- 
ing types of their literature, viz. ballad, trag- 
edy, comedy, lyrics, epics, satire, fiction, etc.?" 
Likewise in reviewing the history of a given 
epoch, the perspective and organization of 
knowledge might be secured by some such 
central question as, ''How was the develop- 
ment of the individual affected in this period 
by the art of agriculture, factories, commerce, 
education, form of government, religion, etc.?" 
This type of unifying review questions meets 
the first purpose of a review. The examples of 
questions just given would belong with the 
upper grades and the secondary schools. 

Such review questions as these may be an- 
swered orally, or in the form of a topical outline, 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 77 

or essay, or drama, or the teacher may answer 
the question in the form of an illustrated story 
or talk. 

In making a review, new material should 
not be included, but a second and larger view 
should be secured. It is also proper to make 
applications. A review is ordinarily desirable 
for both younger and older pupils, especially in 
the subjects involving many facts and details. 
Vitalized teachers dealing with mature students 
may find that a review is unnecessary, detract- 
ing from the freshness and enjoyment of the 
first view of the field. In such cases it is im- 
portant that the examinational question serve 
the purpose of unifying the subject. 

The examinational question, as its name 
implies, is one that seeks to test past instruc- 
tion and present ability. It comes at The 
the end of a course, and its results natl^ai 
often serve as a basis for promotion. Q^^^tion 
It may be either oral or written. Too much 
of our teaching is really examining results of 
pupils' work rather than working out results 
with pupils. And too much of our final exam- 



tS THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

ination tests the mental function of memory 
rather than that of judgment. The exami- 
national question serves two indispensable edu- 
cative purposes, — one, the organization of 
knowledge, and, the other, the application of 
knowledge. Pupils should know in advance 
that the examination will test their ability to 
see the material whole, to institute comparisons, 
and to make application of principles to new 
situations. To get the best results from an 
examination, pupils should know in advance 
it is coming. It is not wise to use the exami- 
nation as a threat to secure better daily work, 
which serves to increase the pupils' distaste for 
examination. Teachers should do what they 
can to decrease any nervous strain due to ex- 
aminations. To omit them altogether, on the 
basis of a high daily average or otherwise, is 
not to be commended, because in no other way 
can pupils be brought so well to the organic 
view of their subject and of knowledge. An 
f examination properly given is not "a scare- 
-f crow in the garden of wisdom," but an oppor- 
tunity for intellectual self-expression, not a 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 79 

necessary evil but an important good, and as 
such should be anticipated with the joy of the 
strong man in the race. 

In illustration of these points of view I will 
append a copy of one of my own examinations 
given to college men which evoked mugtra- 
no protest and which was based on a *^°^^ 
text known to some of my readers, my ''Psy- 
chological Principles of Education." 

SECOND SEMESTER, 1908-1909 

EDUCATION 4 

1. In view of the results of this course, in what sense, 
if any, is educating a science ? 

2. What has practical psychology led you to plan to do 
in your work ? 

3. State just what psychological effects upon your 
pupils you expect your subject to have. 

4. In what ways does the mind get knowledge ? 

5. State the principles in educating the feelings and 
apply them to three selected instances. 

6. Name as many of the instincts of children as you 
can and show the way to treat each. 

7. Discuss three hindrances to attention, showing how 
they may be removed. 

8. Describe the development and training of the reli- 
gious nature in youth. 

Dartmouth College. 



80 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Having now seen the kinds of question that 
may be asked, we turn next to the manner of 
The Man- their asking. The heart of the matter 
o^uestion- ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ questions should be asked 
"^s by the teacher with great sympathy 

for the pupil, with confidence in his ability 
to answer, with expectation that he will an- 
With swer, with surprise when he does not 

Sympathy answer, with interest in his answer, and 
with particular attention to his answer. By 
such a manner in questioning the pupil is to 
be encouraged to do his best; his spontaneity 
is not to be frozen by the evident coldness of 
an inquisitor, by the haughty demeanor that 
seeks in questioning the assurance of a sus- 
picion that the answerer knows little of what he 
is saying. 

A further matter of simple detail is the ad- 
visability of stating your question to the class 

as a whole and then naming the pupil 
The Ques- ^ & i- r- 

tion before who is to answcr. The advantage of 

the Pupil 

this order is that all the pupils think 
the answer before any one is called upon to 
give it. The disadvantage of naming the pupil 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 81 

before stating the question is that the other 
pupils are then less likely to give attention, 
since after all the question is not addressed to 
them. 

Further it is desirable that pupils be called 
upon in no regular predictable order, thus 
keeping the whole class, even those 

^ ^ ^ ^ NoPredict- 

who have already recited, on the qui able Order 

of Pupils 

vive all the time. To call upon pupils 
alphabetically, or according to their seating, is 
to extend an implicit invitation to inattention 
to certain members of the class. 

Again, questions should not be repeated, 
without good reason. This means, of course, 
they should be well asked in the first in- 
stance. To repeat a question on request 
from an inattentive pupil is to re- g^t little 
ward inattention. Likewise, teachers R®P®*ition 
should not repeat the correct answers of the 
reciting pupil, for the attention of the class 
should be given to the answers as well as 
to the questions ; besides much time is 
thereby saved; furthermore, it is irritating 
to good pupils to have their answers re- 



82 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

peated, slightly modified, as though corrected, 
by the teacher. 

It is also well to ask questions deliberately, 
thinking of the question and its correct answer 
withDe- yourself, and allowing a slight pause 
liberation ^fter putting it before calling for the 
answer. Such a sedate process invites think- 
ing ; it also does not throw a pupil off his mental 
balance through the surprise of hearing his 
name called; and it lends dignity to the pro- 
cedure. Of course, in review and drill questions 
considerable speed may be attained. 

We are sometimes puzzled to handle aright 
a general, advanced question we want to ask. 
General Such questions have a place in the 
Specific classroom as suggesting more beyond. 
Questions ^g indicating that the teacher teaches 
the truth and not the text. Such general 
questions should be asked of the class as a 
whole, in contrast with specific questions on 
the lesson assigned, which should always be 
asked of individuals. The reasons for this 
procedure will appear on reflection. Being 
asked of the whole class, a wrong answer from 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 83 

a volunteer is no discredit, while the correct 
answer is a distinct credit. To ask such a 
difficult question, to which you have not the 
right to expect the answer, of an individual 
takes an unfair advantage. On the other hand, 
to ask specific questions, to which each one 
should be able to respond, of the class as a 
whole is to lower the tone of the teaching, is to 
let off the slow ones too easily, is to encourage 
the bright ones overmuch. Questions then to 
which you have the right to expect an answer 
should be asked of individuals ; those to which 
you have no such right should be addressed 
to the whole class. 

Lest these and other suggestions to follow 
be taken too rigidly, let me add that the man- 
ner of our questioning, however good, 
should be varied from time to time, 
that a virtue become not wearisome through 
monotony. Little surprises to the class, due 
to the teacher's versatility and ingenuity, are 
very grateful, and they may appear in the 
teacher's dress, speech, demeanor, or manner of 
teaching. 



84 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

As form apart from content is an abstrac- 
tion, some of the formal characteristics of 
questions now to be considered may 

The Form 

of the trespass upon the succeeding phase of 

Question 

our discussion which deals with the 
content of questions. This is especially true of 
the first characteristic of the form of questions, 
which is clearness. 

Questions should be clear. This is perhaps 
the most obvious of all demands upon the art 

of right questioning. It means that 
Clearness 

teachers think out their main ques- 
tions before asking them, that they be ac- 
quainted with the apperceptive powers of their 
pupils, that they reject unusual words needing 
definition in framing their questions, and that 
they eschew all intention to befuddle and con- 
fuse the minds of their students. Even then 
some questions will not be clear to some 
pupils, but for this the teacher is not alone 
responsible. 

Closely involved in clearness is brevity. 
Questions should be brief. All parenthetical 
explanations and subordinate clauses may well 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 85 

be omitted, as well as repeated efforts to 
state the question. The fewer the words 
that call for what you want to know, 

Brevity 

the better. In this connection it 
may be remarked that two distinct questions 
had better not be asked in one, as tending to 
unclear thinking. Both clearness and brevity 
are more easily secured if the teacher thinks 
clearly himself and knows what he wants to ask. 
Further, questions should be couched in as 
good English as the teacher can command. 
The same is true not only of questions ^^^^ 
but of all one's teaching. The temp- ^^^Ush 
tation is strong upon some teachers to make 
themselves intdligible by resorting to the familiar 
slang of the day, whereas for their pupils' 
sake they should draw only from the well of 
English undefiled. Let your questions be your 
own questions, not drawn from any printed 
page, unless you are as fully their master as 
though you had framed them yourself. In 
this way the question is the outgo of the 
teacher as truly as it calls for the outgo of 
the pupil. 



86 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

For the most part, avoid questions calling 
only for a ''y^s" or "no" answer. Such an- 
The swers as a rule do not demand enough 

aird^"No'* thinking, the chances are too great in 
Answer favor of a guess, and no training is se- 
cured in connected discourse. The permissible 
questions with these short affirmative or nega- 
tive answers are such as really require think- 
ing before the answer is given, and so lead the 
way to the question "Why.^^" 

And lastly, the form of the question should 

not suggest the answer. The question should 

stand upri^jht and not lean toward 

No "Lead- . 

ing either the correct or the incorrect an- 

Question" . 

swer. It is very easy for the teacher 
to suggest by facial expression as well as by the 
form of the question whether the pupil is on 
the right tack or not. In the direct examina- 
tion of a witness no lawyer is permitted by the 
rules of evidence to ask a ''leading" question, 
that is, one that suggests the answer wanted. 
Only in the cross-examination of witnesses is 
this form of question permissible. But the 
motives of a cross-examination have no place 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 87 

in the regular classroom work; it may have a 
place in the principal's office in a case of dis- 
cipline. In the heuristic question we should 
avoid leading the pupil to the correct answer 
as we should misleading him to the wrong 
answer. Likewise the "catch" question is to 
be eschewed, unless it is announced as such, 
when it loses its edge; otherwise the pupil 
caught by it is sure to feel himself not fairly 
treated. The teacher dealing with a pupil 
answering out of the fulness of his ignorance as 
though he knew can silence him and convince him 
of his ignorance by straight questioning, without 
resorting to the game of ''catch" or misleading 
questions, and. the effect will be better. It is 
never safe to set a trap for a pupil lest he en- 
snare you before the class by exposing it. You 
are not to win a victory over him, but you and 
he are to win a joint victory over ignorance. 
In one sense a question has no content; it 

is a form of speech that calls for a 

The Con- 
content. Thus really the answer is the tent of the 

Question 

content of the question. So in dis- 
cussing the content of the question we are 



88 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

discussing its characteristics as best adapted 
to elicit good answering. 

First of all, a question should be stimulating, 
interesting, suggestive. It should awaken a 
stimulat- ^^^^^ of associated ideas, and prove 
^^2 thus to be an incentive to intelligent 

response. This is more likely to be the case 
with the bright pupils than with the dull ones 
and so it is a peculiar victory to be able to ask 
questions that stimulate dull pupils. 

Second, questions should be definite; that 

is, they should call for a specific answer, they 

should not be vague, and not cover 

Definite 

too much ground. A question is like 
an arrow aimed at a target; there is only one 
way to hit the bull's-eye, there are a thousand 
ways of missing it. The pupil who has care- 
fully prepared the work assigned rejoices in a 
definite question, finding a vague one unfair 
to his preparation, but a pupil who has only a 
smattering acquaintance with the lesson finds 
an indefinite question preferable. 

Third, questions should be essential in char- 
acter; that is, they should call out the main 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 89 

points in the lesson, omitting the non-essentials. 
Any text-book is like a picture, with foreground 
and background, the latter existing 

Essential 

for the sake of the former. The 
question should put into the foreground the 
essentials of the assignment, leaving the non- 
essentials in the background. To ask questions 
in this way means analysis of the lesson and a 
judgment of values upon the part of the teacher, 
and it also encourages pupils to stress the main 
points and to estimate which they are. Further- 
more, the sesthetic sense of proportion is pleased 
at such nice adjustment of question and lesson. 

Most teachers ask too many questions. It 
not infrequently happens that a single class 
exercise includes over a hundred questions. 
Such comminuted bits of knowledge destroy the 
perspective between essential and non-essential 
elements in a lesson, besides training the pupil 
in disconnected thinking and discourse. Ask 
fewer questions and broaden their scope. 

Fourth, questions should be logical; that is, 
an inherent connection should exist between 
successive questions, just as there is an inherent 



90 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

connection in a well-composed text. The ques- 
tions thus should grow out of each other, and 
so the whole subject should gradually 

Logical 

be unfolded. Frequently the answer 
of a pupil will be the best clew to the next 
question. In any case continuity in the pres- 
entation should appear. Toward the end of 
the lesson unifying questions should be asked 
that gather the essence of the whole into one 
or two answers, leading to an intellectual 
vision of the whole truth in question, and mak- 
ing applications of truth to life easy. 

Fifth, questions should not simply test the 
memory but also exercise the judgment. It is 
Thought- ^^^y ^^ ^^^ questions whose answers 
provoking j^^vc been learned from a text; it is 
not easy to ask questions that involve think- 
ing, the application of what has been learned 
to a new situation. Yet it is this type of ques- 
tion that distinguishes the rote learner and 
teacher from the flexible type. Equipment for 
success in life is not only memory, but also, and 
especially, judgment. Memory makes good fol- 
lowers, but judgment is essential for leadership. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 91 

Sixth, questions should be suited to the 
capacity of the pupil questioned. This means 
that teachers should know the capac- 
ities of their pupils, and not have so individual 
many pupils in one room that they can- ^^^" ^ 
not make an individual study of them. Gra- 
dation supposedly puts pupils of practically 
the same capacity together; but even so, va- 
riations appear in the same classroom. Each 
pupil should be asked questions that take him 
where he is and lead him on. To ask questions 
beyond capacity is discouraging, to ask ques- 
tions below capacity is belittling, but to ask 
questions just within capacity is developing. 

The teacher as questioner, — what ought his 
characteristics to he? A few of these ^j^^ 
have already been intimated in the Questioner 
preceding discussion. 

First of all, the questioner must be indus- 
trious enough to prepare some at least of his 
questions in advance, even to the point prepare in 
of writing down a few main ones. Not Advance 
all questions should have been first prepared, 
nor should one be rigidly bound by his own 



92 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

preparation, but the fact of having prepared 
will itself improve the quality of his spontaneous 
questions. The very best question will prob- 
ably not have been thought of in advance, but 
will be called out by the needs of the occasion. 
The teacher should attend carefully to the 
pupil's answer, which often is the clew to the 
best question to ask next. 

Secondly, in order to question well, the 
teacher must cultivate an analytic habit of 

mind. It is a good plan to annotate 
Analytic 

the margins of one's own book with the 

essential thoughts in each paragraph, unless the 
author of the text has himself already done so. 
To analyze a lesson into its essential points is 
the first step toward formulating the best 
questions on it. 

Thirdly, the teacher should be practical- 
minded enough to ask questions that make a 

difference; that is, he should teach 
Practical 

from life for life. There is but little 

place in the schoolroom for the merely academic 

question, that is, for the question whose answer 

changes no act, feeling, or thought. The time 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 93 

has gone by when the schoolmaster was the 
sharpener of wits on questions admitting of 
dubious, difficult answers, or none at all. The 
early Middle Age teachers of great renown were 
fond of such unpractical wit-sharpeners as, 
How many furrows has a farmer ploughed when 
he has turned three times at each side of his 
field ? or. Find three odd whole numbers whose 
sum equals three hundred? or. Can angels go 
from place to place without traversing the 
intervening space? To the first of these three 
the Venerable Bede and the great Alcuin gave 
different answers. It is true that such puzzles 
interest the mind; they had more place in a 
time when the human mind was bent, not on 
exploration and discovery, but on whetting its 
powers, — '' ad acuendos juvenes,'' said Alcuin. 
Fourthly, the questioner should be capable 
of eliciting the best from his answer ; this means 
he must be encouraging, attentive, Elicit the 
interested, sympathetic, confidence- ^®^* 
inspiring. To be so is to call forth the best 
efforts of the respondent. The pupil's answer 
should be treated as important, — it is to him. 



94 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

No doubt of his ability to answer should be 
suggested. His sense of power in getting and 
expressing his ideas is cultivated through your 
appreciative recognition of his efforts. Never 
laugh at a pupil, though you should often laugh 
with him. Never be contemptuous of a pupil's 
ignorance or half -formed opinions, unless you 
would repel him. Treat each pupil under your 
questioning, not as a target under fire, but as a 
plant under cultivation; you do not so much 
hear him recite as see him grow. 

Fifthly, be as ready to answer questions as 
to ask them. There is a certain inherent arti- 
Be Ready Sciality in schoolroom questioning ; on 
to Answer ^^ street, the man who questions 
wants to find out something he does not know, 
which his informant tells him; but in the 
schoolroom the teacher who is supposed to 
know already does the questioning. It would 
be less artificial if the pupils did the question- 
ing and the teacher the answering. The highest 
compliment to a teacher as questioner is that 
his pupils ask him questions, not questions to 
kill time, but because they want to know. The 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 95 

dangers in using this method exclusively are 
that some pupils are likely to be neglected and 
the subject is presented in a haphazard fashion. 
But every pupil should feel free to ask the 
teacher a question that concerns him. This 
means of course that the teacher will at times 
have to confess ignorance, which will in the end 
do his soul good; also that he must ''profess" 
nothing which he does not possess. For the 
teacher to take the attitude that he is there to 
question, not to be questioned, is a travesty on 
the true teaching which awakes, not narcotizes, 
intelligence. Growing minds are instinctively 
curious, if we give them half a chance to be so. 
Pupils should not only feel free to ask a question 
when they have one, they should also at times 
be allowed to set questions for each other, thus 
taking the teacher's point of view, and coming 
to study from another angle and interest. In 
giving advice to the teacher of rhetoric, Quin- 
tilian ^ says: "Let him reply readily to those 
who put questions to him, and question of his 
own accord those who do." 

1 Institutes of Oratory, Bk. II, Chap. II. 



96 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Rousseau writes : 

Be content, then, with presenting to him suitable 
objects ; and then, when you see his curiosity sufficiently 
excited, address to him some laconic question which will 
put him in the way of resolving it. . . . If he asks you 
questions, reply just enough to stimulate his curiosity, 
but not enough to satisfy it. Above all, when you see 
that, instead of asking questions for instruction, he under- 
takes to beat the bush and to annoy you with silly ques- 
tions, stop on the instant, for you may then be sure that 
he no longer cares for the thing itself, but merely to sub- 
ject you to his interrogations. ^ 

The answers given to pupils by the teacher 
when they are matters of opinion and not mat- 
ters of fact should be undogmatic in character. 

Sixthly, the questioner should be self -critical. 
When he feels he has failed, he must not be 
Self- downcast, but resolutely and manfully 

critical gg^ ^Q work to discover the reason of 
the failure, that he may remove it. He must 
learn to question by questioning and also by 
reflection upon his questioning. The time to 
examine ourselves is as early after the failure 
as possible, while its details are in mind. It is 
a rare friend who will tell us frankly our faults, 

1 Rousseau, Emile, pp. 139, 145 (Payne Tr.). 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 97 

but we can learn from ourselves, if vanity do 
not blind us, and also from those who do not 
like us, if narrow-mindedness prejudice us not. 
If the secret of your failure is that a member of 
your class does not like you, be magnanimous 
enough to have a private conference with him, 
and end by requesting a favor of him that im- 
plies responsibility. 

Lastly, let us study the literature of this 
subject. Questioning is the old standard 
method of teaching; as such it has study the 
been studied by educators from Soc- ^f^^^^^^ 
rates through Abelard till to-day. The ^"^J^^* 
literature of the subject is both old and new, 
and also considerable. If we would improve 
ourselves in this delicate and fine art, we should 
draw from many living wells, some of which I 
have indicated at the conclusion of this chapter. 

It is important for teachers to have an ideal 
of the kind of answer they want. If teachers 
are satisfied with the "It says" type ^j^^ 
of answer, or the exact words of the ^^wer 
book, then the pupils tend to give that kind of 
answer. But the character of what an answer 



98 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

should be has been reflected by our discussion 
of the character of the question. 

There are three main desirable characteristics 
of the answer. The first is, that it be the product 
The PupU's ^^ ^^^ pupil's best mental reaction upon 
^®^* the question, his own individual reaction, 

with the outgoing of his personality behind it. 

The second is, that, like the question, the 
answer should be couched in good English. 
qqqjj The slang of the street, or incorrect 

EngUsh grammar, or a mispronunciation should 
not be allowed to pass uncorrected in any class- 
room. The best way is to ask the pupil to try 
to correct the mistake in form himself. The 
answer should usually be a complete statement, 
and may often profitably be the whole story of 
the lesson. The teacher has triumphed who 
can bring into his classroom the toleration of a 
long answer from a pupil. 

The third is, the answer should be correct 

as far as it goes, for the sake of knowledge. A 

correct answer need not be repeated 
Correct 

by the teacher, though it may be ; it 

may sometimes be written by the teacher on 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 99 

the board or by the pupils in their note- 
books or it may be repeated by the class in 
chorus. 

To secure these three results in the best way, 
written as well as oral answers will sometimes 
be necessary. A written answer is not 

. Oral and 

under such immediate control of the Written 

An R'w pfft 

teacher as the oral answer. In ad- 
vance of a written test it is well to instruct 
pupils as to the characteristics you desire their 
answers to show. Thus, in addition to the 
three qualities described above, a written an- 
swer should correctly interpret the question 
asked, should show good arrangement of mate- 
rial, and should include no irrelevant filling. 
These results can be secured by a judicious and 
leisurely reaction upon the question and by 
ordering one's answer in one's own mind before 
beginning to write. 

In the conduct of the recitation, how shall 
we handle the well-intentioned incor- 
rect answer ? Recognize any good you incorrect 
can find in it and then pass the ques- 
tion to another pupil. It sometimes hurts the 



100 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

pride of a good scholar to have a question passed 
on, but to pass it on nevertheless stimulates his 
effort in his next answer. 

Certain types of answer should be distinctly 

discouraged and rejected, such as the random, 

careless, hasty, and guessing types, 

.Answers to 

be Dis- and, of course, in any form in which it 
may appear, the dishonest type. If 
it is evident no member of the class knows the 
correct answer, the pupils may be told where 
they can find it, or the answer to a difficult 
question may be given outright. Teachers 
should not avoid the confession of ignorance by 
the subterfuge of telling pupils in a vague way : 
''that would be a good thing to look up." It 
is important that teachers be sincere and that 
pupils come to feel the mystery of the world 
through the inability of the teacher or anybody 
to answer some questions. 

The answer of the pupil as the expression 
of his life and thought the true teacher espe- 
cially regards and studies; it is one of the 
real measures of the degree of our success as 
teachers. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 101 

Not as reflecting any discredit on the pupils, 
but as revealing weaknesses in our own teach- 
ing, let us consider the humorous Natural 
confusion in the following answers p^gf"^ 
of high school pupils to questions on ^swers 
the New York State Regents' examinations : 

"A vacuum is a large empty space where the Pope lives.'' 
"Pompeii was destroyed by an eruption of saliva.'* 
"Typhoid fever may be prevented by fascination." 
"Silas Marner was written by Maxine Eliot." 
"Three members of the cat family are Papa Cat, 
Mamma Cat^ and Baby Cat." 

"Georgia was founded by people who had been exe- 
cuted." 

"Two compound personal pronouns are he-goat and 
she-devil." 

"A mountain pass is a pass given by railroads to their 
employees so they can spend their vacations in the moun- 
tains." 

"Dew is caused by the s wetting of the earth." 
"The nails would get very long if we did not bite them 
occasionally." 

"The stomach forms a part of the Adam's apple." 
"Sanitary suggestions for milking : If a cow switches his 
tail, it may hit a bacteria and knock it into the milk pail." 
"Dikes are made of rocks and cement, or, in cases of 
immediate danger, of bags of dirt, or even the people have 
huddled together to keep the water from entering Louisi- 
ana." 



102 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

"The approximate annual rainfall of New York is 
mostly in the spring." 

"How a knowledge of Biology aids in pruning a tree: 
After pruning a tree, clean the dust out of the pores and 
allow the tree to grow prunes again." 

"The hair keeps things from going into the brain." 

"Permanent set of teeth consists of eight canines, eight 
cuspids, two molars, and four cuspidors." 

"The cause of indigestion is trying to make a square 
meal fit a round stomach." 

"Insects may be destroyed late at night by pouring 
Paris Green on them. This is the time when they are at 
home." 

"The alimentary canal is in the northern part of 
Indiana." 

"The most interesting book I read was the Bible. It 
was about the life of our Lord. It was written by Arch- 
bishop McCloskey." 

"Sixty gallons make one hedge hog." 

Among the things shown by these answers 
are : imagination, lack of definite knowledge, 
lack of observation based on experience, con- 
fusion of words similar in sound, misleading 
associations, and reliance too exclusively on 
oral instruction. Such mistakes are not only 
amusing, they are, or should be, instructive 
to teachers.^ 

1 Of. "The Mistakes of Professors," School and Society, Vol. I, p. 132. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 103 

By way of bringing this long discussion to a 
conclusion, let me refer to certain great ques- 
tioners as illustrations. From out ^^^^^ 
the ancient world, let us select Soc- Questioners 
rates and Jesus, both preeminent questioners. 

Socrates has great fame as a teacher, and 

deservedly so, in view of his great influence 

upon Greek thought and life. As a 

Socrates 
teacher Socrates did not write books, 

ironically assumed ignorance, did not lecture, 
but conversed, and ''could not make a long 
speech," he playfully said. So his fame as a 
teacher rests on the Socratic method, not on 
his outward results, and the main element in 
his method was questioning, which in his 
honor has come to be called "the Socratic art." 
For illustrations of Socrates' method in ask- 
ing questions we may draw upon his historically 
minded pupil, Xenophon, who reports in his 
Memorabilia (IV, 7, 13) : 

Whenever any person contradicted him on any point 
who had nothing definite to say, and who perhaps asserted, 
without proof, that some person, whom he mentioned, was 
wiser, or better skilled in political affairs, or possessed of 
greater courage, or worthier in some such respect [than 



104 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

some one whom Socrates had mentioned], he would recall 
the whole argument, in some such way as the following, to 
the primary proposition : "Do you say that he whom you 
commend is a better citizen than he whom I commend ? " 
" I do say so." " Why should we not then consider, in the 
first place, what is the duty of a good citizen? ^^ "Let us 
do so." " Would he not then be superior in the management 
of the public money who should make the state richer .? " 
"Undoubtedly." "And he in war who should make it 
victorious over its enemies .? " "Assuredly." "And in an 
embassy he who should make friends of foes ? " " Doubt- 
less." "And he in addressing the people who should check 
dissension and inspire them with unanimity ? " "I think 
so." When the discussion was thus brought back to fun- 
damental principles, the truth was made evident to those 
who had opposed him. 

Further illustrations may be found in the 
earlier dialogues of Plato, especially in the 
''Gorgias" and "Protagoras." 

From a study of these illustrations we will 
find several characteristics of the questions 
asked by Socrates, viz. : 

(1) They are "leading" questions in form, — 
the interlocutor always knew the answer Soc- 
rates wanted him to give, though he was not 
always ready to give it. This is a blemish in 
the art of this great master of teachers. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 105 

(2) They are based on concrete data, on 
illustrations drawn from daily Athenian life, 
about which the whole company of listeners 
would know. Socrates began with the known, 
concrete, empirical percepts. 

(3) They call for a definition of terms, for 
the formation of concepts, for a generalization 
based on experience, for the formulation and 
establishment of a principle. Socrates moved 
from the concrete to the abstract, the concept, 
the rational, which at the start was the un- 
known. 

(4) They made the young men to whom they 
were put think for themselves ; the dialogues of 
Plato, which .embody these questionings of 
Socrates, in the hands of a skilful teacher or 
mature reader still do the same. Socrates was 
a developer of mentality through the practice 
of judgment based on observation. 

(5) They were logical in character, following 
on from admitted principles to new and often 
unwelcome conclusions. His pupils sometimes 
objected to being led by insensible degrees into 
a conclusion inconsistent with the views ex- 



106 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

pressed in their initial ignorance. But Socrates 
never laughed at them, because he claimed to 
be removing his own ignorance also by the 
process. 

(6) They often went unanswered, even by 
Socrates himself. He would leave them to 
ferment in the minds of his pupils. For this 
reason many of the earlier dialogues of Plato, 
which are just Plato's literary expression of 
a Socratic conversation, end negatively; for 
example, the Thesetetus, whose question is, 
What is knowledge ? But Socrates was very 
ready to undertake the answer of any question 
raised by an auditor. In fact, the very life of 
Socrates was a question-mark in the presence 
of his fellows. The following passage will show 
how Plato's literary genius clothes this fact. 

At the conclusion of the Apology, Plato 
represents Socrates as considering the question 
whether to die is gain. Socrates continues : 

Above all, I shall then [after death] be able to continue 
my search into true and false knowledge, as in this world, 
so also in that. And I shall find out who is wise, and who 
pretends to be wise and is not. What would not a man 
give to be able to examine the leader of the Trojan expedi- 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 107 

tion ; or Odysseus, or Sisyphus, or numberless others — 
men and women too ! What infinite dehght would there 
be in conversing with them and asking questions ! — in 
another world they do not put a man to death for asking 
questions ; assuredly not.^ 

The preserved illustrations of the questions 
asked by Jesus are to be found in the four 
gospels where they may be studied with 

Jesus 

profound profit by any teacher. Many 
of them are in our minds already, only we have 
not thought to inquire as to their character- 
istics, with a view to imitating their excellen- 
cies. When we do so inquire, we note several 
similarities between the questions of Jesus and 
those of Socrates, as well as dissimilarities. 

(1) Unlike Socrates, Jesus did not employ 
the leading form of question. He stated his 
question in an unbiassed way and left the mind 
of his hearer to react independently upon it 
without any suggestion as to the correct an- 
swer. For example: "Which of the two did 
the will of his father .f^" In this respect the 
questions of Jesus are superior to those of 
Socrates. 

1 Plato, Apology (Jowett Tr.). 



108 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

(2) Like those of Socrates, the questions of 
Jesus are based on concrete illustrations. But 
in the case of Jesus these illustrations, though 
drawn from the experiences of simple life, are 
presented in those consummate word pictures 
known as the parables, fashioned in the work- 
shop of an artist's soul. For example, after 
the parable of "The Good Samaritan" came the 
question, *' Which of these three, thinkest thou, 
proved neighbor unto him that fell among the 
robbers .f^" 

(3) Again, like Socrates, Jesus made his 
pupils think by means of his questions. He 
secured self-expression from his auditors, as a 
basis for further assistance from him. For 
example, before any great work of healing, 
''Belie vest thou that I am able to do this?" 
And after the parable of "The Vineyard," 
"When therefore the lord of the vineyard shall 
come, what will he do unto those husband- 
men.?^" 

(4) Again, like Socrates, Jesus did not al- 
ways answer his own questions, but left them 
sticking in the minds of his hearers. Some of 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 109 

these were rhetorical questions, stronger for 
being unanswered; for example, "Do men 
gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" 
One of these questions his enemies could not 
answer and he did not, viz. "If David called 
him lord, how is he his son?" By the way, 
what is the answer to this question ? 

(5) Again, his questions were very practical ; 
they were aimed at the control of conduct and 
the formation of character. His questions are 
more practical than those of Socrates. Both 
of these superior teachers were interested more 
in man than in nature. But whereas Socrates 
would secure virtue mediately by way of knowl- 
edge, Jesus would secure virtue immediately 
by way of feeling and will. Socrates empha- 
sized the influence of ideas on conduct, Jesus the 
influence of conduct on ideas. The immediate 
aim of Socrates was a new type of think- 
ing, of Jesus a new type of living. Illustra- 
tions of questions asked by Jesus to control 
conduct are: "Why beholdest thou the mote 
that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest 
not the beam in thine own eye?" "What 



no THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul?" 

(5) Finally, the questions of Jesus were very- 
personal. They took hold of the reins of the 
individual to whom they were addressed. Soc- 
rates asked of Theodota (Xenophon, Memo- 
rabilia, 3, 11, 1, seq.) information concerning 
her art of enticing lovers; Jesus asked of the 
woman of Samaria a drink of water to quench 
his thirst that he might awaken her soul to the 
higher life. His was a very personal question 
to the lawyer, ''What is written in the law, 
how readest thou.^" Likewise it was a very 
personal question he addressed to his disciples, 
''But whom say ye that I am.^" 

On the whole it is small wonder that the 
questions of Jesus so impressed themselves 
upon the memory of his hearers that they could 
be recalled a generation later and written down, 
that he impressed them as one having authority, 
even the authority of personal experience, and 
that he seemed to them to speak as never man 
spake. A newly discovered reputed saying of 
Jesus is : "They who question shall reign." 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 111 

From many modern instances that might 
be taken, let me select the famous one of Dr. 
Mark Hopkins, for thirty-six years j^^j^ 
president of Williams College, retiring Hopkins 
in 1872. Former students of his have told me 
he was a famous questioner in three respects, 
viz. (1) keeping the unity of the class as it 
thought out the answers ; (2) keeping the unity 
of the subject by the logical arrangement 
of his questions; and (3) stimulating the 
thought of the individual, so that students 
would continue to discuss his questions after 
the class was dismissed. This modern instance 
particularly may encourage us all to strive to 
be great questidners. 

A skilful lawyer at his work in the court- 
room may show us many things about ques- 
tioning ; it would repay us as teachers j^^ 
to visit sessions of the court, in order ^^^y®' 
to study human nature in general and the law- 
yer's method of questioning in particular. 
There are two forms of questioning used by 
the lawyer; one, the direct examination of 
his own witnesses, in which case *' leading" 



112 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

questions are barred by the rules of evidence; 
the other, the cross-examination of the witnesses 
of the opposing attorney, in which case lead- 
ing or even misleading questions are admitted. 
The teacher is not concerned with the questions 
in cross-examination ; he is only examining 
directly his own witnesses. 

From a very human book ^ I copy a few 
''Golden Rules for the Examination of Wit- 
nesses," usable also by teachers. "If they [your 
own witnesses] are bold, and may injure your 
cause by pertness or forwardness, observe a 
gravity and ceremony of manner toward them 
which may be calculated to repress their as- 
surance. 

"If they are alarmed or difBdent, and their 
thoughts are evidently scattered, commence 
your examination with matters of a familiar 
character, remotely connected with the subject 
of their alarm, or the matter in issue ; as, for 
instance, where do you live.^^ Do you know 
the parties ? How long have you known them ? 

^ Wellman, F. L., The Art of Cross-Examination, Chap. IX. Quoted 
from D. P. Brown, Golden Rules for the Examination of Witnesses. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 113 

etc. And when you have restored them to their 
composure and the mind has regained its equi- 
librium, proceed to the more essential features 
of the case, being careful to be mild and dis- 
tinct in your approaches, lest you again trouble 
the fountain at which you are to drink. 

''Speak to your witness clearly and dis- 
tinctly, as if you were awake and engaged in 
a matter of interest and make him also speak 
distinctly and to your question. How can it 
be supposed that the court and jury will be 
inclined to listen, when the only struggle seems 
to be whether the counsel or the witness shall 
first go to sleep? 

"Modulate your voice as circumstance may 
direct. ' Inspire the fearful and repress the bold.' 

''Never begin before you are ready, and al- 
ways finish when you are done. In other 
words, do not question for question's sake, but 
for an answer'' 

The whole chapter from which these passages 
are quoted will reward the teacher who reads it. 

My final injunction to teachers on the matter 
of questioning is : we must be more than 



114 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

questioners of pupils concerning the known, we 
must be also questioners of life concerning the 
The Larger unknown ; the former is for our pupils, 
Questions ^^le latter is for ourselves. Bacon de- 
fined an experiment as a question put to nature ; 
it is the basis of all scientific progress. We 
may define philosophy as a question put to the 
world at large ; it is the culmination of all intel- 
lectual progress. For the sake of our teaching 
and ourselves we must be constantly ques- 
tioning both men and things concerning what 
we do not know ; only so can we question vitally 
our pupils concerning what we do know. The 
sense of the unknown by contrast quickens our 
appreciation and realization of the known. 
Only as we question do we know; only as we 
grow ourselves can we wisely help others grow. 
Life itself is a question, a continuing experi- 
ment, a process of trial and error, the hunt for 
an answer that no man has as yet fully found. 

REFERENCES ON THE ART OF QUESTIONING 

Bagley, W. C, The Educative Process. N. Y., 1906. 
Betts, G. H., The Recitation. Boston, 1911. 
BouTROUX, Emile, Education and Ethies. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 115 

CoMPAYEE, G., Psychology Applied to Education. Chap. IX. 

Boston, 1899. 
De Garmo, C, Interest and Education. Chap. XIV. N. Y., 

1902. 
Fitch, J. G., The Art of Questioning. Syracuse, 1897. 
Garlick, a. H., a New Manual of Method. Pp. 60-63 

N. Y., 1904. 
Klemm, L. R., Chips from a Teacher's Workshop. Pp. 117- 

121 and Chap. V. Boston, 1887. 
Landon, The Principles and Practice of Teaching and Class 

Management. 7th ed. London, 1908. 
Matthew, Chaps. XXI-XXIII. 
Mark, Chaps. XI-XII. 
McLellan and Dewey, Applied Psychology. Chaps. IX-X. 

Boston. 
McMuRRY, F. M., *'Questionmg," in Monroe's Cyclopaedia 

of Education. Vol. VI. N. Y., 1913. 
Morgan, T. J., Studies m Pedagogy. Chap. XV. 
Parker, S. C, Methods of Teaching in High School. N Y , 

1915. 
Plato, Meno, Gorgias, Protagoras. 
Seeley, a New School Management. Chap. XVI. N Y 

1903. 
Stevens, R., The Question as a Measure of Efficiency in In- 
struction. N. Y., 1912. 
Wellman, F. L., The Art of Cross-Examination. N. Y. 
Xenophon, Memorabilia. Bk. IV, Chap. II. 
Young, W. T., The Art of Puttmg Questions. Syracuse, 1895. 

Questions on the Art of Questioning 

1. What recognition did Plato give to questioning.? 

2. Give five reasons why it is important to question well. 

3. Why is a good question an aid in securing attention ? 

4. What are four general purposes of questioning ? 

5. What is involved in *' setting forward the attainment of 
the class in a given field" ? 



116 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

6. Name, describe, and illustrate the four kinds of questions. 

7. What use may be made of the auxiliary question in lec- 
turing to older pupils ? 

8. What are some of the specific purposes of the searching, 
or heuristic question ? 

9. Give some elementary and advanced questions on Lm- 
coln's Gettysburg Oration. 

10. Distinguish the secondary and primary purposes of re- 
view questions. 

11. Prepare some drill and some unifying review questions 
in your favorite subject. 

12. What are the two purposes of an examinational question ? 

13. Name six characteristics of the manner in which ques- 
tions should be asked. 

14. Name five characteristics of the form of the question. 

15. Name five characteristics of the content of the question. 

16. What ought the characteristics of the teacher as ques- 
tioner to be ? 

17. Name three desirable characteristics of the answer. 

18. Why are written answers sometimes desirable ? 

19. In what way should an incorrect oral answer be treated ? 

20. What types of answer should be discouraged ? 

21. Name six characteristics of the questions of Socrates. 

22. Name six characteristics of the questions of Jesus. 

23. Compare the questions of Socrates and Jesus. 

24. Describe Mark Hopkins as a questioner. 

25. What may teachers learn from lawyers about questioning ? 

26. Why should teachers ask questions of nature and of life ? 

Suggestions for Further Study 

1. Trace the history of questioning as an educational 
method. 

2. Compare the relative benefits of questioning pupils and 
talking to them. 

3. What is the difference between involuntary and volun- 
tary attention ? (See any Psychology.) 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 117 

4. Frame a good definition of teaching. 

5. Who was Tuiskon Ziller ? 

6. What is the etymology of "heuristic" ? 

7. What is "the point of contact" in teaching? 

8. How is clear speaking or writing related to clear think- 
ing? 

9. What is meant by "the adolescent mind" ? 

10. Formulate six good heuristic questions on the subject, 
or subjects, you teach. 

11. Formulate elementary and advanced heuristic questions 
on Washington's Farewell Address. 

12. Under what cu-cumstances may the review of a subject 
be omitted ? 

13. Consider the good and bad effects of examinations. 

14. Prepare three examination questions that test judgment. 
15.^ What criticisms would you make on your own manner of 

questioning ? 

16. What criticisms would you make on the form of your 
own questions ? 

17. What criticisms would you make on the content of your 
own questions ? 

18. How many questions do you ask in a forty-five minute 
period on the average ? Is this too many ? 

19. What light on our own teaching do the naturally humor- 
ous answers of pupils throw? 

20. Study the questions of Socrates in the Memorabilia of 
Xenophon. 

21. Study the questions of Jesus in the gospels. 

22. Was Socrates or Jesus the better questioner ? Why ? 

23. How does the purpose of the teacher differ from that of 
the lawyer in questioning ? 

24. Formulate some questions whose answers you do not 
know. 



CHAPTER III 

THE ART OF STUDYING 

There is a gratifying increase of interest 
to-day in the art of studying. Teachers are 
The New asking, as never before, I believe, in 
^terestin ^.j^^ history of their profession, how 
Subject ^Yiey themselves ought to study and 
how they may get their pupils to study in the 
best way. Several new books on the subject, 
referred to in the list at the end of this chapter, 
have been put forth to meet this demand on the 
part of teachers and to help stimulate it too. 
For once one can hardly refer to this increas- 
ing interest as a revival of an old one ; it is a 
new phenomenon. The only thing comparable 
to it heretofore occurred at the time of the 
Renaissance and after, when the humanistic 
scholars like Erasmus were concerned with 
the right method of study along with their 
interest in the classics. Following in the wake 
of the Revival of Learning certain philosophers 

118 



THE ART OF STUDYING 119 

like Bacon, Locke, and Descartes were con- 
cerned with the methods of investigation, the 
conduct of the human understanding, and the 
principles of clear thinking. These old writings 
are still worth the time spent in pondering them 
by the modern student. On the whole only 
greatly desirable results may be anticipated 
from the present momentum of interest in the 
best way to study, such as increased pleasure 
in the process and increased profit in the result. 
One of the great ideas of our time is con- 
servation and the elimination of waste. As a 
people Americans are relatively thrift- present- 
less and wasteful. This is largely due ?^y ]^aste 

*=• *^ in Edu- 

to our enormous resources and our ^^*^°^ 
prosperity, and the consequent absence of 
saving as a necessary virtue. This trait of 
wastefulness appears all through our life, even 
in our educational system. Perhaps the great- 
est single source of waste in our educational 
work is the wrong use of time, which we spend 
too much in hearing recitations and discovering 
what pupils have already learned and too little 
in training them to study. We practise them 



no THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

too much in telling what they know and too little 
in learning how to know. Our pupils spend too 
much of their time in learning what the book says 
and too little in facing problems for themselves. 
The result is that our pupils leave school with 
a store of information but with very little ability 
to handle situations. We can conserve the 
pupils' time and eliminate much educational 
waste by training them in the art of study. 

How shall we define study .f^ The great 

thinker, Immanuel Kant, said that a definition 

should come at the end, not at the 

Definition 

of Study beginning, of an inquiry. Such a pro- 
Kant on cedure is inductive, Socratic, and in 
accord with the way the mind does 
move in framing a definition for the first time. 
But for purposes of logical exposition, it will 
help us to begin with a definition of terms. 
It is easy to define study in too narrow a way, 

as in Hinsdale's definition: "Study is 

Too 

Narrow a the use of books for the serious pur- 
pose of gaining knowledge." ^ But 

surely one may also study man and nature. 

1 Hinsdale, The Art of Study, p. 18. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 121 

Let us try this definition : Study is the mental 
process of mastering a problem. This problem 
may be of any kind whatsoever, in- 

Definition 

volving things, or words, or both. 
As the Greek etymology of the term suggests, a 
"problem" is "something thrown before" the 
mind, some obstacle to be surmounted, some 
situation requiring serious thought to handle it 
aright, some difficulty requiring a solution. 
Everybody in every walk of life must at times 
face real problems and try to solve them. 
Study is the mental process by which this is 
done. 

That real study involves an application of 
the mind to the matter in hand will not be 
questioned, an application not always 
agreeable in itself, though its ultimate Application 

Involved 

consequences are. As the educa- 
tional proverb, attributed by Diogenes Laertius 
to Aristotle, and repeated by Plutarch and 
Alcuin, has it: "The roots of learning are 
bitter, but its fruits are sweet." Study is 
indeed mental application, but what we need 
to know is how the mind works in applying 



122 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

itself to any problem. We can take up ttis 
question best, however, a little later in im- 
mediate connection with the practical topic, 
how to train pupils to study. For the pres- 
ent let us consider certain large matters con- 
cerned with the approach to the subject of 
study. 

There are certain general presuppositions 
which must be taken for granted if study is to 
General prove very fruitful. One is that study 
Si^ns^of" ^^ ^ certain type of life, that is, in case 
study ^Q ^j,Q ^Q ]jQ constantly progressing. 
It is artificial to call certain young people in 
The Life school ''students" and not allow the 
of study term to others or to the same per- 
sons later in their lives. The fact is, the real 
student spends his whole time either in studying 
or in preparing to study. Again it is artificial 
to suppose one can be too busy in any human 
relationship to find time for study ; rather, our 
human business is a shining opportunity for 
study. A purely mechanical occupation soon 
exhausts our ability to study it. Teachers in 
the schoolroom, if they will, may study their 



THE ART OF STUDYING 123 

pupils as well as teach them, and so come to 
teach them better. So may parents in the 
home. So may all persons whose occupations 
involve relationships to life. 

Again, the real student has many interests. 
Not enough, indeed, to scatter his forces, but 
he has enough to meet his fellows on j^^^^y 
their plane of interest without always ^*®^®sts 
or usually requiring them to come to his plane. 
The student has his specialty which he should 
let spread out through its relations to many 
different things. To have many such second- 
ary interests counteracts the deadening influ- 
ence of routine, prevents narrowness, promotes 
sociality, and ' discourages eccentricity. To 
have many interests is like fishing with many 
baited hooks in the stream. Among his many 
ramified interests in life is a central one. This 
is his main object of study. It engrosses the 
most of his attention, and the attention he gives 
to it is involuntary, without the sense of com- 
pulsion, and accompanied by pleasure. He 
warms his soul at this central hearth stone, 
though he is often chary of admitting others 



124 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

here, for fear of thrusting his interests on others 
and "'talking shop." 

There is no real study without independence : 
independence of judgment and, to a certain 
indepen- extent, independence of the deaden- 
dence [^^ routine of a mechanical occupa- 
tion. The student must have some free time 
to think his own thoughts as well as to master 
the thoughts of others and to observe his prob- 
lem for himself. The logicians warn us of the 
fallacy of paying undue respect to a noted 
authority, — argumentum ad verecundiam. This 
warning is especially applicable when an author- 
ity noted in one field is invoked to settle a 
question in a different field. One is entitled to 
respect as an authority in a field only in pro- 
portion as he has mastered the problems of that 
field. The aim of the real student is, or should 
be, to master the problems in his chosen field 
for himself. He learns from all, but he does his 
own thinking. 

At the conclusion of one of his arguments 
Professor Paulsen remarks, "And after all, 
when we come to think of it, error alone is 



THE ART OF STUDYING 125 

dangerous ; things are what they are ; how can 
true ideas concerning them harm us, or false 
ones benefit us ?" ^ In accord with the ^j^^ Love 
spirit of this remark of a great student ^^ ^^^^ 
and teacher, we may say the true student is a 
lover of truth. He looks for the truth, in sys- 
tems and beyond systems, in doctrines and 
beyond doctrines, in science and beyond science. 
He is bound by no traditions except those whose 
inherent truth is still a vital force. In his 
inward soul he subscribes to those great words 
written in his private diary by the noble Roman 
Stoic and emperor: "If any man is able to 
convince me and show me that I do not think 
or act right, I wrll gladly change ; for I seek the 
truth by which no man was ever injured. But 
he is injured who abides in his error and igno- 
rance." ^ This is intellectual hospitality, can- 
dor, sincerity, honesty, which are inseparable 
from the love of truth. 

Aristotle wrote in the first book of his Ethics, 
having Plato, who had been his teacher for 

1 Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, p. 74 (Thilly Tr.). N. Y., 1898. 

2 M. Aurelius, Thoughts, VI, 21 (Long Tr.). 



126 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

twenty years, in mind : ''Our friends and truth 
are both dear to us ; but it would be impiety 

Aristotle ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ place to truth." 
Quoted on Commenting? on this statement, Bur- 

the Love *=' 

of Truth net ^ says, ''This has become almost 
proverbial in the form given to it by Cicero, 
'Plato is my friend, but truth is more so.'" 
Thus truth requires of the student a kind of 
impersonal allegiance. 

The real student loves the truth that he 
may become free himself, free from ignorance 
nd ^^^ ^^^ consequences, and also that 
Freedom j^^ ^^^^ \\A^ make men free. It is 
only in fun that we can say with Pudd'nhead 
Wilson, "Truth is precious, therefore let us be 
saving of it." Jesus taught, "The truth shall 
make you free," and that we are witnesses to 
the truth. 

The ideal of the student is knowledge and 
its use. The truth in its eternal nature may be 
one and unchangeable, but man's knowledge of 
the truth is a constantly unfolding and growing 
process, and man's use of such knowledge lags 

1 Burnet, Aristotle on Education, p. 21. Cambridge, 1905. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 127 

still behind. The real student loves the truth 
so well that he is willing and glad to have his 
false or inadequate views of it refuted or en- 
larged. The sense that the whole truth is 
now known is the grave of the student's enter- 
prise and power. The soul of the teacher who 
supposes he need not study any more is already 
dying. 

In what was said above concerning the life 
of study it was implied that study should be 
both a habit and an ideal. Study ^^^ g^^^j^ 
should be so ingrained as a habit as to ^^ ^^^^^ 
have become a second nature. The real stu- 
dent is studying men and things even when he 
is not aware of doing so, and without having 
especially set himself to do it. Without such 
a mechanism, such an automatism, at the basis 
of study we can hardly hope to arrive any- 
where or to derive the best benefits. We must 
avoid "the agony of starting," we must have 
regular, but in no case rigid, study-hours, we 
must allow adequate time for physical and 
mental recreation in the open air and with our 
fellows, we must sleep as much as we require 



128 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

for best work, and we must eat a merely suffi- 
cient quantity of wholesome food. It is un- 
wise economy for the student to neglect the 
claims of the physical man in any way. Study 
cannot be the efficient habit it should be with- 
out a dependable supporting physique. 

We must also presuppose on the part of the 
student that study is not only a habit, but also 
The Ideal ^^ ideal. When under new circum- 
of study stances his habit fails him, his ideal 
will carry him through; and when under old 
circumstances his habit fails him through the 
deadening effects of routine, his ideal again will 
come to his aid. Study is an ideal for the stu- 
dent because he has the will to know as its 
efficient cause and the purpose to enable both 
himself and others to profit by his attainment 
as the final cause. There is no study that 
avails apart from the student's real desire to 
learn, apart from genuine interest in the sub- 
ject-matter. Too frequently this will to learn 
is absent from the lives of pupils and teachers. 
Really it should be the culmination of the child's 
instinct of curiosity; too often this instinct is 



THE AKT OF STUDYING 129 

deadened by compulsory routine. Teachers 
must fight to keep alive the strong native 
instinct of curiosity in their pupils and in them- 
selves. Truth cannot reveal itself to listless 
worshippers. 

From these general presuppositions of study, 
which help us to approach the subject in the 
right spirit, we turn now to more practical 
matters. 

The important thing in connection with the 
mechanical aids to study is that each individual 
student should develop his own. The 

Mechani- 

great Orientalist, Max Muller, found caiAids 
the paper-pad note-book of mdispen- 
sable aid, and - recommended its use to Ox- 
ford students. A file of references on each of 
the main subjects of interest to the 
student is a great aid when the time 
comes to master and to use the knowledge of 
any particular topic. The making of a card- 
catalogue, if not too troublesome, will serve 
the same purpose. Every periodical issuing an 
index will be carefully filed away. The mak- 
ing of bibliographies, as the better books come 



130 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

to one's attention, is most serviceable. Even 
newspaper clippings, when they are evidently 
dependable, are well worth while. 

Every student will take pride in his private 
library, which is his workshop, the one essential 
One's qualification of which is that it be a 
Library growing one. It is not important to 
own many books : it is important to know well 
those you do own ; it is not the having but the 
knowing of books that counts. Naturally one 
will keep a list of books to buy, and, as most 
students are not large money-earners, will be 
on the watch for advantageous sales of books; 
but he will never buy for the sake of buying, but 
only to satisfy a real need. The student who 
would be a scholar must command other lan- 
guages than his own, as tools. Then, too, 
there should be a place for everything that 
comes to one's desk; a glance will indicate 
whether the waste-basket or some particular 
pigeon-hole is the right place. 

But the most profitable single mechanical 
aid to the student is to have a weekly program 
of work, indicating how the waking hours should 



THE ART OF STUDYING 131 

be spent. Such a program will allow ample 
time also for recreation, social duties, and des- 
ultory reading. The length of the program 
day is the same for all alike; given ^^^ork 
the same capacity for work, those accomplish 
most who have the best program. It will 
require a delicate application of one's phi- 
losophy of life to construct this plan of how to 
spend one's time in the best way. Without 
some such schedule, we lose much time in decid- 
ing what to do next, and then are not quite 
sure whether we have decided aright. From 
this account of the mechanical aids to study we 
learn that the aim of the student is not to know 
everything but where to find anything he needs, 
that the brain is not so much a repository of 
knowledge as an instrument for gathering it, 
and that study is a continuous process of 
gathering usable truth. 

As there are mechanical aids to study, so 
also there are physical conditions of 

^ "^ _ Physical 

study. These conditions, as those Conditions 

of study 

aids, require no extended treatment 

here; it is enough for our present purpose to 



132 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

indicate their importance by calling attention 
to them and by a passing mention. 

First of all the physical conditions is the 
rested brain and the not-too-tired body. It 
Brain and li^i'dly pays to undertake serious study 
Body when the brain, the instrument of the 

mind, is already fagged, or when the body is 
exhausted from any form of muscular exertion. 
Then, the light should be right, pref- 
erably from the rear or, in the case 
of right-handed persons, from the left. The 
eyes should be shaded and in no instance should 
the angle of reflection carry the light waves 
into the eyes. Reading in the sun, or lying 
down, or when in rough motion, as on the 
usual trains, is objectionable. Under these 
circumstances one might better occupy his 
mind, if alone, in reflecting on what he has read 
and in planning ; ^ but if read he must, let it 
be from a text in large print. The paper 
should be unglazed, the lines not too long, for 
the sake of economy in eye-motion for rapid 
readers, and with good spaces between the lines. 

^ Cf. Arnold Bennett, How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 133 

The best temperature for health in the study 
or schoolroom does not exceed 68°. For good 
ventilation one must rely upon his 

, 1 . « 1 . Tempera- 

reason and his sense oi drowsmess, ture and 

not upon his olfactory nerves which 
quickly fatigue under any constant stimulus 
such as vitiated air provides. One's study 
should be located in a quiet part of the house, 
and the study-hours should be kept as free 
from interruption as possible. The best phys- 
ical conditions for study are not always to be 
had, especially as regards quiet and freedom 
from interruption, and the good student who re- 
gards his time not as money but as beyond all 
money will leafn also how to work under dis- 
advantages ; he will make the conditions con- 
form to his standard when he can, and when 
he cannot, he will conform to the conditions. 
Through the act of willing what is annoying, 
though inevitable, the mind rises superior to 
thwarting circumstance.^ 

Thus at length we reach that phase of our 
topic which was probably first suggested to the 

^ I. Kant, On the Power of the Mind. 



134 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

mind of the reader at the sight of the title 
of this chapter, viz. How shall I study? Im- 
Hq^^q mediately following this question be- 
study longs the related one, How shall I 
train my pupils to study? for, of course, the 
way to train my pupils to study is just the prac- 
tical application of the way I should 

Related study myself. And immediately con- 
Questions 1 . 1 1 1 1 

nected with both these questions is a 

third. How shall I teach? though this last can 

receive but brief treatment in the discussion of 

study. Studying, training pupils to study, and 

teaching are three closely related processes. 

Good teaching is certainly a great aid to pupils 

in learning how to study, but it is not alone 

sufficient. 

How shall one study? A short initial, very 

suggestive, and yet inadequate answer would 

be, apply the Herbartian formal steps 

Teaching ' i^^ ^ 

Oneself by of method to oucsclf ; that is, teach 

the Her- ip • i 

bartian the Icssou to yoursclf m the approved 

Fonnula « i . i p , . . , 

lashion beiore teaching it to others 
by (1) preparing your mind to undertake the 
work; (2) covering the material point by 



THE ART OF STUDYING 135 

point; (3) comparing the various points; (4) 
generalizing; and (5) making applications of 
the generalization. 

There are indeed some valuable hints here 
for the process of studying, especially in study- 
ing books, as we shall see, but there 
are also several weaknesses, viz. (1) rfthlT^^^ 
you must already know the lesson be- ^"'^'^"^ 
fore you can teach it to yourself in this way, 
and how did you study in the first place in 
order to master the lesson.? (2) This method 
of study would apply very well to books, but 
how would it apply to things, in the study of 
which observation, hypothesis, verification, etc., 
play so large a p61e ? (3) This method of study 
takes no account of the motives regularly 
prompting us to study, such as some felt need 
or practical problem. And (4) this method of 
teaching and studying is better suited to the 
imparting of knowledge than to the develop- 
ment of ability in handling new difficulties. 

If we cannot accept the Herbartian intel- 
lectual formula for teaching as a guide in our 
own study, how then shall we study.? An 



136 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

analysis of a completed study process reveals 
just four main types of mental operation, viz. 
Pq^ (1) facing a problem ; (2) hunting for 

ttiTstudy ^ solution; (3) recognizing the right 
Process solution; and (4) using the solution. 
So long as what we are doing proceeds suc- 
cessfully and smoothly, there is no problem 
and we do not study. But as soon as some 
hitch comes in the process of acting, then we 
halt, begin to study, hunt for a solution, some- 
times hitting upon it almost or entirely by 
accident, recognizing it when we have it, and 
using it. 

A simple illustration will show the four 
phases of the process. A farmer is ploughing 
niustra- ^^ ^ rough field. He strikes a tough 
tion j.qq|. g^j^j breaks the end off the point 

of his plough. What shall he do? He can- 
vasses all the possibilities in his mind, such as 
going on with a broken point as best he can, 
going away to get a new point, changing his 
work from ploughing to hoeing, etc. Finally, he 
decides it is best to go after a new point, does 
so, and then proceeds with his ploughing as 



THE ART OF STUDYING 137 

before. If he is wise, he will bring more than 
one new point ; and if he had been still wiser, 
he would have anticipated breaking a point in 
that field and would have come provided. This 
is a type of all real study. A problem arises, 
usually unexpectedly ; we try to find a solution ; 
the solution is finally recognized, if we are able 
to solve the problem at all ; and, applying the 
solution, we proceed as best we can until a new 
problem arises. 

Take another illustration. A boy is in- 
terested in birds. He hears a new note. It 
puzzles him. He cannot identify it. Another li- 
lt is like that of a hermit-thrush, but lustration 
it is not a hermit-thrush's. He sights the bird. 
It is reddish brown above and faintly spotted 
with brown below. Home he goes with all his 
observations in mind, regarding the song, the 
size, the color, the shape of the new bird. He 
eagerly consults his bird-book for identification. 
Finally he decides it is a veery, and plans to 
see and hear his new acquaintance again. 
This is typical of real study. Out of a real 
situation comes a new interest, need, or problem ; 



138 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

it is faced and met ; the solution finally comes ; 
the solution is used. Sometimes it takes years 
to find the solution to a difficult problem. 

The situation is not different in pure re- 
search. One has an interesting problem. It 
Pare ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^ theoretical and not a 

Research practical problem, but it is interest- 
ing. To satisfy this interest is practical in a 
broad sense of the term to the scientist devoted 
to research. The observations and exper- 
iments are many. Finally, it may be after 
years, the solution is found. It works. The in- 
terest is satisfied. Meanwhile another interest, 
perhaps many of them, has been developed. 
One of these is taken up and pursued. It may 
be laid aside in discouragement for a while, and 
then taken up again. Such a student we call 
a pure scientist. He is discovering truth, not 
caring whether it is immediately practical. It 
satisfies his interests to go on. By and by 
some practical genius may turn to good account 
the discoveries of the scientist, improving 
thereby the lot of mankind. So actually did 
Marconi in devising the wireless telegraph on the 



THE ART OF STUDYING 139 

basis of the pure researches of J. J. Thomson 
and Lord Kelvin. 

All this may seem remote enough from school 
study, and it may be, but it should not be. 
These illustrations show us what real study, 
in distinction from formal study, truly is. 
First a problem, then the attack on it, then the 
solution, then the use of the solution. During 
the process we are really interested, attentive, 
have lost the sense of time, have found out 
something, have expressed ourselves, and have 
the sense of dealing with real values. 

How then shall I study .^ First, get my 
problem ; my life itself gives it to me, 
many of them ' in fact ; sometimes How Shall 
several in a day. Sense it. Realize ^ ^' 

'^ ^ The 

the need of solving it. Real study Problem 
always has a purpose in it, a motive behind it. 
Second, hunt for the solution. This is in- 
deed a complex and varied process, 

The Hunt 

dependent for its character some- 
what upon the problem itself, whether bookish, 
naturalistic, etc. But in hunting for the so- 
lution it will always help us (1) to use all the 



140 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

knowledge we already have; (2) to have some 
guess in mind as to what the solution is ; (3) 
to get all the facts bearing on the question 
we can before us, by observation, reading, 
conversing with others, etc.; (4) to analyze 
our problem or material into its essential and 
component parts when we can; and (5) to be 
constantly testing the guess we have in mind 
and as constantly putting it aside for another 
one until the happy solution is reached. 

Third, we recognize the solution which we 
seek. The answer has been found. We can 
Finding the ^ecognize the solution when finally 
Solution found because it works, solves the 
difficulty, answers the question. The fortu- 
nate guess we made has been verified. And 
when found, we must formulate the answer 
definitely, give it a name, state it as a propo- 
sition, conceive it in general terms, and fix it 
in mind. So we keep it for use. 

Fourth, set the solution to work. What 
difference does it make to life and conduct? 
Use What does it lead us to do ? What sug- 

gestions about further truth does it awaken .^^ 



THE ART OF STUDYING 141 

What related problem may have the same or 
a similar solution? Shall the truth be done? 
What person, or class of persons, needs to know 
this truth? So the truth begins to shape and 
inspire life. 

Thus we find four main factors in the mental 
process of mastering a problem which we call 
study, viz. the sense of facing a problem, the 
search for the solution, the solution itself, and 
finally its use. In a somewhat more detailed way 
Dr. McMurry, in his recent very valuable book 
on How to Study, finds eight factors : viz. pur- 
pose., supplementing, organizing, judging, mem- 
orizing, using, questioning, and individuality. 
1 The bare statement of these eight principal 
factors in study according to Dr. McMurry 
should be supplemented by one of his own 
summarizing paragraphs on "the meaning of 
study," as follows : 

True or logical study is not aimless mental activity or a 
passive reception of ideas only for the sake of having them. 
It is the vigorous application of the mind to a subject for 
the satisfaction of a felt need. Instead of being aimless, 
every portion of effort put forth is an organic step toward 
the accomplishment of a specific purpose ; instead of being 



142 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

passive, it requires the reaction of the self upon the ideas 
presented until they are supplemented, organized, and 
tentatively judged, so that they are held well in memory. 
The study of a subject has not reached its end until the 
guiding purpose has been accomplished and the knowledge 
has been so assimilated that it has been used in a normal 
way and has become experience. And, finally, since the 
danger of submergence of self among so much foreign 
thought is so great it is not complete — at least for young 
students — until precautions for the preservation of indi- 
viduality have been included.^ 

There is evidently no contradiction between 
the Hst of four and the list of eight factors. 
The difference is that the list of four looks at 
study as the mental process of mastering a 
problem, bringing out the indispensable essen- 
tials in this process, while the list of eight in- 
cludes certain related matters like memorizing, 
maintaining the questioning attitude, and pre- 
serving individual initiative, which we have 
stressed, or which we shall have occasion to 
stress, in another connection. 

The four main factors of study appear in 
mastering every problem, whether of life, lab- 
oratory, or book. But so much of the time 

1 F. M. McMurry, How to Study, p. 283. Boston, 1909. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 143 

of teachers and pupils alike is spent in study- 
ing books, and necessarily so, that these four 
factors should be restated from the 

How to 

standpoint of mastering an assign- study a 

All • -1 ^^^ 

ment m a text. And here usmg, with 
modifications, the Herbartian formula on one- 
self is more suggestive, as this formula is more 
successful in learning or in imparting what is 
already known than in discovering for oneself 
what is unknown. 

First, as before, define the need which prompts 
you to study. What need have I leading me 
to undertake this piece of intellectual ^ Define 
work.^ At what problem am I work- Your Need 
ing? This felt and formulated need should 
be at the basis of every piece of study. 

In connection with defining one's need, it 
will also be profitable to revive your present 
knowledge of the subject. What do 

Awaken 
I already know about this subject .^^ Old As- 
sociations 

To answer this question will help de- 
fine your need, will increase your apperceiving 
power, will enable you to take a more inde- 
pendent attitude toward what you read, and 



144 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

will enhance the suggestive power of the material 
before you. 

Then, go through the material, whatever it 
is, leisurely, and with concentrated attention, 
and pick out the main points; that 
is, analyze the subject studied. Study 
leisurely that the pertinent associations of the 
subject may have time to come into mind, that 
you may stop and think out a suggestion to 
its end, that your critical faculty may react. 
James Bryce gives us this advice : ''One should 
read in a critical, that is to say, a searching, 
testing spirit. Our spirit ought, no doubt, to 
be respectful to the author of the book, if he 
happens to be a well-informed man; but re- 
spect is not the same thing as submission." 
Milton ^ likewise urges reading independently 

upon us, as follows : 

However, many books, 

Wise men have said, are wearisome ; who reads 
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not 
A spirit and judgment equal or superior, 
(And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek ?) 
Uncertain and unsettled still remains. 
Deep-versed in books and shallow in himself, 
1 Paradise Regained, Bk. IV, U. 321-331. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 145 

Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys 

And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge, 

As children gathering pebbles on the shore. 

Studying leisurely in this way is the golden 
mean between idle reading as a mere pastime, 
taking an intellectual stroll, on the one hand, 
and cramming the mind with undigested and 
unrelated facts, on the other hand. I do not 
say never stroll and I do not say never 
cram; both operations have their uses; but 
neither of them is true, purposeful, growth- 
securing study. Studying with a concentrated 
attention is again a mean, distinguished on the 
one hand from the wandering or divided at- 
tention, which is as much interested in other 
things as in the business in hand, and the 
strained attention based on the keyed-up nerves 
of the student. President King writes so well 
on this point that I must let him speak : 

There is study and study. Much that is so called 
hardly deserves the name. And the kind of study that a 
man does affects the whole man. Many students would 
gain by shortening their hours of so-called study, by 
stopping more frequently for brief periods of rest, and by 
studying with determined concentration while at it. This 



146 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

does not mean working on one's nerves, in a tense, strained 
attitude of mind, but cool, calm, steady attention to the 
work in hand, and to that alone, even if the mail comes in 
the midst of one's study. It is a great epoch in a student's 
career when he has had experience of the joy and achieve- 
ment of the best concentration of which he is capable. 
Now he knows what study means, and he cannot again 
content himself with sitting before an open textbook, 
while from time to time he recalls his mind from the ends of 
the earth.i 

Study leisurely, with concentrated attention, 
it was said, picking out the salient points as 
you go. This last is analysis ; it involves per- 
ception; it gives the mind the concrete data, 
facts, and the important details; it eliminates 
vagueness from one's knowledge, '* blindness" 
from your general notions, as Kant would say. 
By dividing you have conquered. 

Then, at the end of your material, review the 
whole in mind and formulate your concept of the 
3 synthe- subject. Reach a general notion con- 
®^® cerning the essence and drift of what you 

have studied. Synthesize your percepts. This 
means intellectual grasp and vision ; your mind 
has risen above its material and sees it whole. 

1 H. C. King, Rational Living, pp. 134-135. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 147 

Finally, recur to your initial need with the 
question, How does this material satisfy my 
need? How can I apply my knowl- 
edge of this subject? What use can 
I make of it ? How can it be made to function 
in my life or in the lives of others? This is 
application, practice, ''doing the truth." With 
this jfinal stage you have completed the cir- 
cuit; you began in need and you end in its 
satisfaction. You are then ready to continue 
acting in the light of knowledge acquired by 
study until a new need arises, which halts your 
process, and sends you back again to your 
study. To act without study is to be ''the 
man-in-the-street" ; to study without acting 
is to be "academic" ; to act till you need light, 
to study till you get it, then to act in the 
light of study till you need more light, is to be 
a complete student ; it is also to be a complete 
man, "thoroughly furnished unto all good 
works." 

The four factors emphasized in the study of 
a text, viz. initial sense of need, analysis, syn- 
thesis, and application, naturally cannot all 



148 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

be utilized in the mastery of a single assign- 
ment of a few pages, nor is this necessary. It 
now appears that Herbart himself never intended 
the formal steps to be followed in each lesson, 
but applied only to considerable bodies of 
material. 

At this point we pass from the question of 

how to study to the related one, train- 
Training 
Pupils to ing pupils to study. This is the 

Study 

practical question for which our analy- 
sis of the process of study has been preparing. 
It is not an easy thing to learn to study. 
Real difficulties are in the way. 

Difficulties 

in Learning Among these we may mention (1) 

to Study 1 • p 1 'IP 

the complexity oi the process itseli ; 
(2) the many outside interests of children, 
which, however, if rightly correlated with school 
work may become a wonderful aid; (3) the 
tendency of children to get what the teacher 
wants in the quickest way possible, especially 
by asking somebody that knows instead of 
finding out for themselves; (4) the general 
wearisomeness of school duties, which, however, 
can be largely met by re-shaping those duties 



THE ART OF STUDYING 149 

to meet the real situations of life; (5) the 
failure in the assigning of work to make the 
problems definite and to suggest how to go 
about the solution ; (6) as previously indi- 
cated, poor mechanical aids and poor physical 
conditions in home and school for study; (7) 
poor teaching, which does not provide proper 
stimulus to study, and (8) lack of time provided 
for study in home and school. 

At what age should we begin to train chil- 
dren to study? As soon as a child can ask 
a question. This is none too soon 

^ , ^ At What 

to begin. The question asked by the Age should 

. . . Children 

child is the sign that a problem is al- be Taught 
ready being faced. Children learn 
more in the way of skill and adaptation to 
environment in the first five years of life than 
during any succeeding period of five years. In 
answering questions, give information when 
you have to do so, but when you can, call the 
attention of the questioner to certain facts that 
will enable him to answer his own question. 
This is the beginning of training in observation, 
collection of facts, and judgment, which are 



150 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

of the essence of all study. With advancing 
years through kindergarten, primary grades, 
grammar grades, secondary school, college, grad- 
uate or professional school, research work in 
life, the same method of study holds, with 
ever deepening and widening significance ; a 
question put to oneself, the gathering of data, 
its sifting and ordering, the testing of an hy- 
pothesis, final verification, then the use of the 
truth so gained. Children of all ages should 
be taught to study, but the problems must be 
selected and simplified to suit the age and 
capacity of individual children. It was a wise 
word that Dr. Arnold said to the Rugby boys : 
"You come here not to read, but to learn how 
to read." 

This matter of teaching pupils how to study 
has been agitating the minds of American 
A Report ^ducators more or less for some 
Quoted ^^gj^^y years. Let me quote from a 
report on ''When and Where shall the Child 
Study .^" made several years ago by a special 
committee to the then City Superintendent of 
Cincinnati, W. H. Morgan, as follows : 



THE ART OF STUDYING 151 

Nothing shows the weakness of our system more than 
the absence of a time for intelligent study in school under 
the guidance of the teacher. Programmes set apart a time 
for everything else but this essential thing. The pupil at a 
given time must be shown how to study in the presence and 
by direction of the teacher. In what does this "how" 
consist ? It is partly in the way to analyze the subject, to 
see its prominent points, the consecutive order of thought 
in it, the meaning of its language, the method of finding 
supplementary information, etc. There must be a divi- 
sion of classes, a time set, instruction in the way to study, 
and a set habit of study. We have too much recitation 
and help and too little silent study in school by pupils 
who have been prepared for it. Let the pupil show you 
occasionally his way of studying to see if he has acquired 
any.i 

In accord with the suggestion of this quo- 
tation we may indicate several ways in which 
teachers may train pupils in the art study with 
of study. First of all, teachers must ^^^^^v'^^ 
study with the pupils and let the pupils see 
how they themselves would set about master- 
ing the problem or assignment. Get pupils to 
help you in the conduct of the recitation itself ; 
as, for instance, in stating the aim of the lesson, 
selecting the main points, condensing the truths 

1 Rep. U. S. Com. Ed., 1890-91, Vol. 2, p. 1050. 



152 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

of the whole into a single statement, and seeing 
the bearing of the lesson on living. For ac- 
quainting pupils with the method of study, 
there should be a study period in the schedule ; 
where such a period is lacking a portion of the 
recitation period itself may be profitably given 
to learning how to study. Comenius^ wrote: 
*'It is therefore cruelty on the part of a teacher 
if he set his pupils work to do without first 
explaining it to them thoroughly, or showing 
them how it should be done, and if he do 
not assist them in their first attempts; or 
if he allow them to toil hard, and then loses 
his temper if they do not succeed in their 
endeavors." 

One of the criticisms passed by John Stuart 
Mill on the methods used by his father in 
teaching him was: "Though he told me how 
to read, he never showed me by doing it him- 
self." Example, then, is the first way by which 
we should teach our pupils how to study. 

Recurring to the four elements in the study 
process, how shall we bring the sense of the 

iThe Great Didactic, Keatinge, Ed., p. 138. London, 1907.] 



THE ART OF STUDYING 153 

problem home to our pupils? Whether they 
are studying at home, or during the study 
period, or during a portion of the Helping 
recitation period devoted to study, first §^^3^ *^g 
of all they must sense the problem. ^^^^^^"^ 
Ways in which this can be done are : state the 
assignment in the form of a problem; suggest 
its interest and value ; show its relation to the 
lives the pupils are living ; indicate how it 
grows out of what has just preceded. Studying 
is not learning pages, but mastering problems. 
How shall we assist pupils properly in hunt- 
ing for the solution of the problem.^ By 
giving them a series of questions to 

Hunting 

answer, each of' which leads up to the for the 
succeeding one, and the whole list 
bringing them clearly in sight of the solution 
sought. By bringing fact after fact to attention 
in such an order that the answer to the ques- 
tion sought is clear to those with mental eyes to 
see. By developing the material so clearly, 
concretely, vividly, and analytically before them 
that it is mastered point by point and the way 
is prepared for a general view of the whole. 



154 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

How shall we assist pupils in recognizing, 
fixing, and retaining the solution? It is gen- 
erally reached as a concept or general 

Recogniz- . . , ^ 

ingthe notion or a principle. It grows out 

Solution „ , ,. , X. • • 1 

oi the preceding step. It is mainly 
a matter of seeing the material as a whole. 
One way is to train pupils in the making of 
outlines, either on the board or in their note- 
books. Another way is to train them in 
summarizing in a single statement or two 
the truth of the whole. Another way is the 
formation and test of hypotheses. The solu- 
tion usually comes as an intuitive flash when 
the situation has been properly analyzed and 
presented. 

And how shall we help the pupils to use the 
solution found .^ Mainly by assigning more 
Using the Problems of the same general nature 
Solution requiring a similar solution. Also, by 
going beyond the text and relating knowledge 
to life. For example, in geography, pupils 
should draw maps of their own community, 
village, or city. In civics, they should learn 
the names of the officers of town, state, and 



THE ART OF STUDYING 155 

nation. Further, they should catalogue the 
domestic and social needs of the environment 
in which their school is placed, as they can see 
them, and then inquire what school children 
can do to meet those needs. Such a problem is 
differently faced by every pupil. And such a 
method of study will do more than any other 
one thing to remove that academic aloofness 
which is the bane of American teaching. 

In immediate conjunction with the foregoing 
thought, let me urge that teachers suggest the 
uses in the homes to which the lessons secure the 
of the school may be put; for ex- LessoLin 
ample, in the matter of school decora- t^^eHome 
tions, sanitation, hygiene, correct speech, decla- 
mation, recitation, deportment, etc. For most 
school children the home is the natural institu- 
tion of life in which first to use what they learn 
in school. Such use naturally involves the co- 
operation of parents with teachers, and a part 
of the work of the teacher in training pupils to 
study is the enlisting of the aid of the parents. 
In this connection I beg the privilege of quoting 
McMurry again. 



156 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Parents are more bent upon obtaining results and 

setting rid of their children — so far as school 
Parents 7 

and the work is concerned — than are teachers, so that 

School Re- the duties assigned to them [the parents] should 

quirements , « i p • i i. ±. 

be tew and or a simple character. 

There are some important things for parents to do, 
however. They should take pains to provide proper 
physical surroundings for home study, including quiet, 
proper light and temperature. They should exert an 
influence in the direction of regular hours, of a short period 
of relaxation immediately before and after meals and 
before bedtime, and of some variety of occupation during 
the longer periods of study, so that fatigue may be avoided. 
In addition, they should stimulate their children by 
bringing pressure to bear on the lazy ones, by "hearing 
lessons " now and then, and, above all, by asking questions 
that call for a review of facts as well as for their use in 
conversation. They may give some help ; but if they do, 
they should by all means avoid falling into disputes about 
method. The child is right in preferring to do a thing in 
the teacher's way, for it is to the teacher that he is finally 
responsible; and parents ought to be broad enough to 
try to follow the teacher's plan. They can help their 
children most by showing concern for them, really inspect- 
ing their written work instead of merely pretending to, 
and otherwise manifesting genuine interest in their tasks. ^ 

We saw above that studying, training pupils 
to study, and good teaching were reciprocally 
related. Right study re-acts beneficially on 

1 F. M. McMurry, How to Study, pp. 305-306. Boston, 1909. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 157 

teaching, and good teaching is an aid to right 
study. In this connection we cannot go at 
length into the large question of what q^q^ 
is involved in good teaching, but it is ^n Aid"to 
necessary to point out that the four ^^^^^ 
phases of the study process and of training 
pupils to study can and should also reappear 
here. We may teach by telling stories, by the 
question-and-answer method, by the conference 
method, or by the lecture method ; still in each 
of them we have (1) the problem, or situation ; 
(2) the hunt, or development ; (3) the solution, 
or climax ; and (4) the application, or conclusion. 

In the very form of the story itself we found 
the beginning, the development, the inxjsing 
climax, and the ending, relating it to *^® story 
all drama and also to the four phases of the 
study process. 

In good questioning likewise, when this 
method is used, we should first bring out the 
problem, then its phases, then the j^^ ^^^^^ 
solution, then the application. Es- ^i^^^e 
pecially in questioning should the topic or the 
problem, not so many pages of the text, be the 



158' THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

object of our questioning. The kind of ques- 
tions we ask helps to set the pace for the kind 
of study we secure. Go behind the lesson as- 
signed into the causes, methods, and bearing 
of the material. Why ? How ? For what pur- 
pose .^^ The bearing on life.^ Such questions 
cannot be fully answered from a knowledge of 
the text, but require thought and reflection, 
elicit a personal reaction, and so quicken a 
personal interest. Pupils may also very prop- 
erly be induced to ask questions themselves of 
the teacher and of each other. 

Likewise in using other teaching methods, as 
the lecture, or the conference, sometimes called 
inLectur- ^^^ seminar, we will find it best and 
"^s most natural to put the problem for- 

ward first, then the elucidation of its phases, 
then the proposed solution, then the resulting 
action. In this way we teach as the mind 
learns when it learns best. 

The psychology of learning indicates that 
the mind first intuits vague wholes, then ana- 
lyzes these wholes into parts, then integrates 
the whole. The procedure is from the vague 



THE ART OF STUDYING 159 

whole, to detailed analysis, to clear synthesis. 
So we teach reading by the word method ; the 
word is first a vague whole recognized 

® ^ ThePsy- 

as a unity, then later the letters com- choiogyof 

Learning 

posing it are learned by name and 
sound, then finally the word is recognized as a 
clear and integrated whole. The process of 
evolution itself, as described by Spencer, very 
well fits in with the psychology of learning, viz. 
from homogeneity, through differentiation, to 
integration. 

We have thus seen how good teaching, what- 
ever the method used, reacts beneficially on the 
art of studying, illustrates and emphasizes in fact 
the same four features, though no one would say 
pupils can learn how to study, without being 
trained to study, merely by being well taught. 

There are several additional features of good 
teaching which also assist pupils in learning how 
to study. These include the right attitude 
toward texts, variety, right examinations, the 
placing of responsibility on pupils, and the 
studious teacher, to each of which we will give 
brief attention. 



160 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

Students should be given the right attitude 
toward their texts. A text-book is not material 
Right to be memorized unquestioningly as 

toward^ it stands, but to be comprehended. 
Texts thought about, tested, accepted or 

rejected, and utilized. A text is the consensus 
of opinion regarding the matter treated as 
sensed and reported by one person. ''History" 
does not record anything, but historians do. 
The selection of texts is a most important 
matter ; one must have regard not simply to the 
subject to be covered, but also the manner of 
presentation and to the probable reaction of 
the class upon the text. Some texts will al- 
most teach themselves; others will provoke 
the resentment of both teacher and class. In 
general an acceptable text is attractively bound, 
well printed in large type on unglazed paper, 
with lines far enough apart and the page not so 
wide as to require excessive lateral motion of 
the eyes, long enough to allow concrete illus- 
tration as well as abstract statements with- 
out becoming thereby prolix, with an impartial, 
unbiassed, undogmatic, and scholarly presenta- 



THE ART OF STUDYING 161 

tion of the field covered, and withal, in good 
prose style. It were desirable for pupils to 
own their own texts, to study them with pencil 
in hand, to mark important points, to annotate 
the margins, to criticise, and to summarize. 
In these days of public libraries and the social 
provision by the school of the texts of the 
pupils, the custom might helpfully be introduced 
of inserting loose thin blank sheets between the 
pages to serve the same purposes. 

Give to the learning mind many points of 
view of the same material, approach the lesson 
from several different angles at dif- 

^ ^ utilize 

ferent times. Narrate the lesson in Many 

Modes of 

the third person, tell a similar ex- Presenta- 
perience m the nrst person, illus- 
trate it with pictures, build something it de- 
scribes, dramatize it, make some practical use 
of it. Set the imagination of children to work 
that in their own way they may envisage the 
whole. By the use of these means study real- 
izes and vitalizes its object. 

Utilize the right kind of examination. Some 
students will study more under the stimulus of 

L 1 



162 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

an approaching examination than at any other 
time. The examination should not be made a 
Examine bugbear in the temple of wisdom, nor 
^^^^* should it be held in itself as a whip 
over students before the time. The examina- 
tion is the opportunity of the students to re-act 
in a large way upon the material covered, their 
last time for full self-expression in the field 
treated. The character of the examination it- 
self should emphasize correct ideals in study, 
not stuffing the mind for a future relieving dis- 
gorgement, but assimilating knowledge for use. 
An examination should test ability as well as 
memory; thus it should contain new questions 
and problems, it should allow free play for criti- 
cism, and it should give the student enough 
range for him to show where he is strong in- 
stead of seeking to find his weak points. The 
pupil should prepare for an examination in the 
same spirit in which he habitually studies, viz. 
to know in order that he may be able to do. 

Train pupils to study at their own initia- 
tive, not always at yours. Unless study be a 
voluntary process, becoming finally habitual, 



THE ART OF STUDYING 163 

it cannot outlast school life. The indeter- 
minate lesson may help pupils to study, as 

the indeterminate sentence helps pris- 

^ Place Re- 
oners to control themselves. Both the sponsibiuty 

school and the home must place some 
responsibility upon the children themselves in 
this matter of study. After all, it really rests 
with them whether they become masters in 
science and art or not. You can compel the 
eye to look at the book, but you cannot compel 
the mind to attend. Children should be re- 
quired to study a minimal amount of time, if 
they have to be required, and should be privi- 
leged to study only so much more; such a 
minimal requiretnent and maximal permission 
leaves them a measure of freedom and respon- 
sibility. 

Finally, the teacher who would train pupils 
to study must be himself a student. Show 
yourself as teacher to be a true stu- ^he 
dent, always finding out new things, '^^^^^l^ 
always using them, having a many- student 
sided interest, never appearing dogmatic or 
irritated at the expression of a difference 



164 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

of opinion, exemplifying the best methods 
of accomplishment, and enjoying the life of 
study. 

Expect the same from your students. Work 
for your pupils and expect them to work for 
you. They will, if the work you assign them 
is obviously putting them forward, meeting 
their interest and satisfying their needs. The 
teacher who does for his pupils what he wants 
them to do for him will have little cause to 
complain of results. And by and by a com- 
pany of young scholars whose enthusiasm was 
quickened at his altar-fire will rise up to do 
him honor. America has furnished at least 
two rather prominent examples of this truth in 
the persons of Professor Garman at Amherst 
and Professor James at Harvard. 

The German teachers impress both their pu- 
pils and visitors to their classrooms with their 
scholarly mastery of their subjects. 

Herbart on i p t p 

the The thoroughness and profundity or 

German scholarship is without doubt 

partly due to the contagious influence on the 

pupils of teachers so capable in their subjects. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 165 

Miinsterberg ^ recalls this impression of his early 
teachers in Germany above all others. And on 
this point Herbart ^ said : ''Now the right kind 
of example is wanting, which the teacher should 
set — one of reading, thinking, writing, that 
implies complete absorption in the subject. 
And yet it is this example concretely illustrating 
how to take hold of the subject, how to present 
it, and how to associate it with related subjects, 
which effects the best results in good instruction." 
In the light of our study of the art of study, 
we may draw certain conclusions affecting our 
general educational views, viz. (1) it conse- 
is better for the pupil with his activi- ^^piesof^" 
ties and needs to be central rather Teaching 

and 

than the teacher ; (2) it is better that studying 
texts should be written from the standpoint of 
children learning how to study than from the 
standpoint of the logical exposition of the sub- 
ject; (3) it is better to judge our methods of 
teaching by the way in which pupils attack a 
problem than by the amount of memorized 

^H. Munsterberg, "School Reform," Atl. Mo., May, 1900. 
2 Herbart, Outlines of Educational Doctrine, p. 105. (Lange and 
De Garmo.) N. Y., 1909. 



166 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

information they can show ; (4) it is better to 
train pupils to study than to rely on good teach- 
ing alone to achieve the result desired; (5) it 
is better to form right habits of study than to 
know many facts; (6) it is better for teachers 
and pupils to study together than for teachers to 
hear pupils '"recite" what they have somehow 
acquired by themselves ; (7) it is better to view 
the human mind as a tool for discovering needed 
truth than as a repository of information. 

It must not be inferred from the foregoing 
that children who are learning how to study 
need not know anything. On the contrary, 
they will know what they know in a better 
way, because it has been better acquired. In 
fact, when we sum up the results of 

The Five \ ^ ^ 

Results of studying as one should, they include 

Study 

(1) certain standards of procedure to 
which to conform in attacking a problem, cer- 
tain ideals of mental approach to difficult 
matters; (2) certain mental development of 
habits and skill in meeting and handling new 
problems ; (3) certain acquisition of informa- 
tion, what we have found out by solving so 



THE ART OF STUDYING 167 

many problems ; (4) let us hope also, on the 
individual side, the gradual perfecting of con- 
duct, bringing it into conformity as rapidly as 
possible with the truth discovered ; and (5) 
let us hope also, on the social side, the increase 
of our effectiveness, by which we become more 
useful to more people. As Karl the Great 
wrote to the abbots of the monasteries: "It 
is without doubt better to do than to know, but 
it is necessary to know in order to be able to do." 

Closely connected with the question of how 
to study are three others, a brief mention of 
which may prove welcome to some readers, 
viz. how to master a new book, how to make 
notes, and how to write a paper on some topic. 
These matters are constantly coming up in the 
lives of teachers and students. 

In mastering a new book, if you are reading 
for the sake of the literature or because you 
are to be examined upon its contents. 

Mastering 

you will read all ; if, on the other hand, a New 

Book 

you are reading for facts to satisfy per- 
sonal needs, you will skip judiciously. Always 
have some definite purpose in view in going 



168 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

through a new book. Consider the position 
and probable standing of the author as an 
authority. Read the preface to see the at- 
titude of the author toward his own work and 
to gauge his cahber. Look carefully at the 
table of contents to determine the scope of 
the undertaking and the presence or absence of 
logical arrangement in the presentation. Is it 
a collection of essays or a systematic develop- 
ment .^^ By this time you may have decided, 
within ten minutes, that the book will not re- 
pay your reading. If you decide otherwise, 
concentrate on the presentation of, and con- 
clusion on, the point or points that concern you, 
making notes in the book, if it is your own, or 
in your note-book. At the end, sum up in a 
few sentences your reaction upon the book as 
a whole, and put it where it belongs on your 
shelves for possible future use. A book without 
an index loses half its reference value. 

The matter of note-making is a considerable 
art in itself. Not industry so much as judg- 
ment makes the good note-book. If we could 
remember everything we learn likely to prove 



THE ART OF STUDYING 169 

of future use to us, a note-book would not 
be necessary. Judgment appears in selecting 
those things likely to be forgotten and 

The 

yet likely to be wanted. A note-book Making of 

. . Notes 

IS not for exhibition nor for storage, 
but for use. Put into it the things you do 
not want to escape you, the essential points, 
not elaborate verbatim quotations, but facts 
and inferences, good phrases and summaries. 
Especially include exact references to author, 
title, page, with place and date of publication. 
And by some such device as a loose-leaf sys- 
tem keep pages together that belong together. 
When you come to write, your notes are your 
main reliance, in ease you are not writing fiction. 
''When you come to write." It is an im- 
potent feeling that leads one to stare at a 
blank sheet of white paper with one's ^j-itinga 
theme at the top and not an idea in ^^^^^ 
one's mind. Such a beginning is wrong. 
Rather, carry your theme for days in your sub- 
consciousness while it grows, and while you 
note casual references to it. Jot down thoughts 
regarding it as they rise in consciousness ; such 



170 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

thoughts are really incubated by the brain as- 
sociations formed by all your past study and 
experience. Then, order these thoughts of your 
own logically on paper as an outline. Then, 
read all you possibly can from good authorities 
on the subject, collecting also material from 
your own note-books. Then rearrange your 
outline, introducing this new material where it 
belongs. Then, finally, when your brain is 
rested and your mind unharassed, write your- 
self out with such power of thought and such 
finish of form as you can command. By the 
use of some such procedure as this you will 
always be original to a degree, you will always 
have something to say in the body of your com- 
position, you will embody logic in your pres- 
entation, and you may come even to experience 
the highest pleasure, — that of artistic self- 
expression. In any case you will not have lost 
your individuality and you can say with the 
English philosopher, Hobbes, "If I had read 
as much as other men, I should still be as ig- 
norant as they." It is due yourself not to 
quote much, lest you appear the ass in the 



THE ART OF STUDYING 171 

lion's skin ; it is due your sources that you cite 
them frequently and exactly ; and it is due both 
to yourself and to them that you never quote 
without quotation marks. Finally, regard writ- 
ing as an opportunity, not as a task, — an oppor- 
tunity to use what you have learned, and so to 
know it better, to keep it longer, and perchance 
even to give some pleasure and profit to others. 

Strictly speaking, I suppose the art of writing 
a paper has little to do with the art of study ; 
but it may be observed, in justification of the 
paragraphs above, that it has a good deal to 
do with the practical use of the results of study. 

Life itself is a vast school, and its lessons we 

are all set to learn by experience and study. 

Living is a process of doing illumined 

and reenforced by thinking. Since the study 

. . . . Process 

study IS thus a contmumg element m 

the life process, it is important that we guide it 
with the proper patience and perse- 
verance and otherwise aright. Do first Things 

First! 

the thing that needs to be done first; 

face all your immediate duties squarely and select 

the most pressing one for first performance; 



17^ THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

it may be one that has waited long; and it 
will certainly require effort to do it in the face 
of the pleasure afforded human nature in doing 
''something else," good perhaps in itself, but not 
requiring immediate performance. There is no 
future day when it will be quite so easy to do 
a present duty as to-day. 

Attack a problem that is hard for you. It 
Hard means the growth of mental grasp. To 

Problems j^ always only the things easy for you 
to do is the death-knell of the mind's power. 

Read the great books, — those that make 
a difference in your thinking, feeling, and act- 
Great ^^S ' ^^^ example, the writings of Des- 
Books cartes and Locke, referred to at the 
end of this chapter, on the very topic of study. 

Watch the signs of fatigue.^ It does not pay 
to study when your brain or body or both are 
Avoid ^^^ ^^ good condition. When you 

Fatigue fgg] y^^ cannot quit, it is already 
past time to quit. The extra hour beyond the 
fatigue limit demands more than a normal 
hour's energy; besides, it fills the body with 

1 Cf . Mosso, Fatigue. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 173 

toxic acids from whose deleterious effects you 
cannot recover in a night. Always stop in 
time not to suffer to-morrow, viewing your 
task as that of a lifetime, not as that of a day. 
Do not let yourself be overburdened through 
your desire and willingness to do all the good 
you can in the world. There is also 

Do Much, 

a duty at a certain point discoverable not Many 

Things 

by you, as Horace Bushnell said, of 

"not doing any more good." But be thorough 

in what you do undertake and so avoid what 

Dean Hodges calls ''the immorality of second 

best." 

You must also treat your body right. We 
are rather souls with bodies as instruments, 
than bodies with souls as feeling- Regard the 
centres. Care for your body as you Physical 
would for your trusty servant whose very life 
is to do your bidding. This suggestion harks 
back to ''the physical conditions of study" 
described above. 

Finally, love your study. A life of study or 
of listless existence is behind every opinion we 
express, every piece of work we do. The 



in THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

rewards of the teacher's profession are not 
silver and gold. They include the hearts of 
Love Your ^^^ students, our long vacations with 
Work opportunities for recreation and travel, 

and, not least, what Professor Palmer calls 
"the life of enriching study." 

References on the Art of Study 

Adams, J., Making the Most of One's Mind. N. Y., 1915. 

Bacon, Francis, Essays, "Of Studies." 

Bacon, Francis, Novum Organum. 

Bagley, W. C, The Educative Process. Chap. XXL N. Y., 

1906. 
Bagley, W. C, Classroom Management. Chap XIII. N. Y., 

1907. 
Bain, A., Practical Essays. VII. 
Breslich, E. R., "Teaching High School Pupils How to Study," 

The School Review, Oct., 1912. 
CoLViN, S. S., The Learning Process. N. Y., 1911. 
Cramer, F., Talks to Students on the Art of Study. San 

Francisco, 1902. 
Dewey, J., How We Think. N. Y., 1910. 
Descartes, Discourse on Method. Edinburgh, 1897. 

(Veitch Tr.) 
Dutton, S. T., School Management. Chap. XIII. N. Y., 

1904. 
Earhart, Lida B., Teaching Children to Study. Boston, 1909. 
HiGGiNS, "Study Physiologically Considered,'* Pop. Sc. Mo., 

XXIV, 639. 
HiGGiNSON, T. W., Woman and the Alphabet. VI. Boston, 

1900. 
Hill, "True Order of Study," Am. J. Ed., Vol. VI, pp. 180, 

449; Vol. VII, pp. 273, 491. 



THE ART OF STUDYING 175 

HmsDALE, B. A., The Art of Study. N. Y. 

Jones, Olive M., Teaching Children to Study. N. Y. 

KooPMAN, The Mastery of Books. 

Locke, J., "Of Study," in Locke on Education; Quick, Ed. 

Cambridge, 1902. 
McMuRRY, F. M., How to Study. Boston, 1909. 
McMuRRY, F. M., "Study," Art. in Monroe's Cyclopaedia of 

Education. Vol. V. N. Y., 1913. 
Moore, J. G., The Science of Study. N. Y. 
MiJLLER, Max, "How to Work," in Last Essays, Vol. I. 
RiCKARD, G. E., "High School Students' Description of their 

Methods of Study," The School Review. Dec, 1914. 
RiECHENBACH, "How to Study," Education, XII : 26. 
RuEDiGER, W. C, "Teaching Pupils to Study," Education. 

March, 1909. 
TuKE, O. H., "Intemperance in Study," Pop. Sc. Mo., XVI : 625. 
Woodward, W. H. (Tr.), Vittorino da Feltre, 109-112, 172-178. 

Cambridge, 1905. 

Questions on the Art of Studying 

1. What are some signs of a new interest in studying? 

2. What is the source of greatest waste in present-day 
education ? 

3. Define study. 

4. Give and criticise Hinsdale's definition of study. 

5. Name six general presuppositions of study. 

6. Why be independent in studying ? 

7. If study is a habit, why should it also be an ideal ? 

8. Name three mechanical aids to study. 

9. Name four physical conditions of study. 

10. What are the Herbartian "formal steps" in teaching? 

11. What are some weaknesses of these steps as a guide to 
study ? 

12. What are the four phases of the study process ? Illustrate. 

13. What elements may enter into the hunt for the solution 
of a problem ? 



176 THREE SCHOOL ARTS 

14. Compare McMurry's list of eight factors in study with 
the list of four given in the text. 

15. What are the four steps in mastering a sufficiently long 
lesson in a text ? 

16. What is meant by studying leisurely ? 

17. Give several reasons why it is not easy for children to 
learn to study. 

18. How early may children be taught to study ? 

19. By whom and when should children be taught to study ? 

20. What are the advantages of teachers studying with the 
pupils ? 

21. How may teachers help pupils in each of the four factors 
of study ? 

22. How should parents help children study in the home ? 

23. Show how the four factors of study reappear in good 
teaching. 

24. What, in brief, is the psychology of learning ? 

25. What is the right attitude toward texts ? 

26. How does variety of presentation in teaching aid study.? 

27. What are the characteristics of a good examination ? 

28. How may we place responsibility on children for study ? 

29. What are the good effects of the teacher being also a 
student ? 

30. Wliat characteristic of the teacher does Herbart emph asize ? 

31. What are some principles of teaching and studying 
growing out of our discussion ? 

32. Name five results of study. 

33 . What are the points to be observed in mastering a new book ? 

34. Describe a good note-book. 

35. What is a desirable procedure in writing a paper .^^ 

36. In what ways should we guide the study process ? 

Suggestions for Further Study 

1. Estimate Bacon's Essay : "Of Studies." 

2. Give Locke's account of Study. 

3. What are the main principles in Descartes' Discourse on 
Method? 



THE ART OF STUDYING 177 

4. Enumerate the sources of waste in modern education. 

5. Is study a means or an end ? 

6. To what extent are "the roots of learning bitter" ? 

7. What difference would it make if men loved the truth ? 

8. On what point in philosophy did Aristotle differ from Plato ? 

9. What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a 
weekly program of work ? 

10. Herbart's own exposition of the formal steps of method. 
(See his Outlines of Educational Doctrine.) 

11. Give further illustrations of the four phases of the study 
process. 

12. Distinguish sharply the second and the third of these 
phases. 

13. Compare McMurry's views on "How to Study" with 
Dewey's on "How We Think." 

14. Compare the four phases of study with the four adapta- 
tions of these in mastering a lesson in a text. 

15. How does the age of pupils affect each of the four factors 
of study ? 

16. Should schools give credit for work done in the home ? 

17. To what extent is good teaching an aid to right study ? 

18. Does the best teaching proceed first from the whole to 
the part or from the part to the whole ? 

19. Name some characteristics of good texts. 

20. Is it desirable to waive examinations in lieu of high 
scholastic standing ? 

21. How may teachers secure volunteer work from pupils? 

22. What may teachers do in the way of personal study for 
themselves ? 

23. Describe some incorrect views of the minds of children. 

24. Write out your reaction on some book you have recently 
read. 

25. What are some mistakes in taking notes ? 

26. Which is more profitable to a pupil, to be taught how 
to study, to be told certain useful facts, or to be examined in 
what he already is supposed to know? 

27. What use can you make of this discussion? 



INDEX 



Abelard, 97. 

Msop, 36. 

Alcuin, 93, 121. 

Answers, 86, 97, 99. 

Application, Mental, in study, 121. 

Aristotle, 23, 121, 125, 126, 177. 

Arnold, Thos., 150. 

Attention, 65, 

Aurelius, M., 125. 

Auxiliary Question, 68. 

Bacon, R, 119, 176. 
Bennett, Arnold, 132. 
Boy Scouts, 20. 
Brevity, in questioning, 85. 
Browning, R., 51. 
Bryant, S. C, 37, 44. 
Bryce, James, 144. 
Burroughs, John, 21. ^ 
Bushnell, Horace, 173. 

Chesterton, G. K., 38. 

Cheyne, Canon, 24. 

Cicero, 126. 

Civilization, and story-telling, 119. 

Class management, 65. 

Clearness, in questioning, 84. 

Comenius, J. A., 152. 

Definite questions, 88. 
Deliberation, in questioning, 82. 
Descartes, 119, 172, 176. 
Dewey, J., 177. 
Dickens, Charles, 39. 
Difficulties, in learning to study, 

148. 
Diogenes, Laertius, 121. 



Dramatizing stories, 47. 
Du Bois, Patterson, 69. 

Eastman, C. A., 33. 

English, good, in answering, 98. 

in questioning, 85. 
Erasmus, 118. 
Essential questions, 89. 
Examinational questions, 77. 
Examinations, 162. 
Expression, teaching by, 45. 

Froebel, 20, 29, 46. 

Garman, C. E., 164. 
Gilder, R. W., 29. 
Goethe, 38. 

Good teaching, and study, 157-158. 
Graded stories, lists of, 55-60. 
"Great Stone Face, The," 27. 
Guiding the study process, 171- 
174. 

Hall, G. S., 34. 

Haslett, S. B., 37, 44. 

Hawthorne, 27. 

Herbart, 148, 164, 165, 175. 176. 

177. 
Herbartian Formula, 134-135. 
Herodotus, 24. 
Heuristic Questions, 70. 
Hinsdale, B. A., 120, 175. 
Hobbes, Thos., 170. 
Hodges, Geo., 173. 
Home, and study, 155. 
Homer, 24. 
Hopkins, Mark, 111, 116. 



179 



180 



INDEX 



How to study, 134-148. 
How to study a text, 143-148. 
Hubbell, Maj. W. S., 30. 
Humor in pupils' answers, 101. 

Illustrating stories, 46. 
Independence, mental, 124. 
Individual capacity, 91. 
Interests, many, 123. 

James, Wm., 164. 

Jesus, 41, 63, 103, 107-110, 116, 

117, 126. 
Jotham's parable, 41. 

Kant, I., 120, 133, 146. 
Karl the Great, 167. 
Kelvin, Lord, 139. 
King, H. C, 145. 

La Fontaine, 36. 

Lanier, Sidney, 51. 

Lawyer, the, as questioner. 111. 

Leading questions, 86. 

Library, one's own, 130. 

Lighting, 132. 

Lincoln, 29, 73, 116. 

Locke, 119, 172, 176. 

Logical questions, 90. 

Mabie, H. W., 50. 

Making notes, 169. 

Marconi, 138. 

Mark, H. T., 42. 

Mastering a new book, 167-168. 

McMurry, R M., 141, 142, 155, 

156, 176, 177. 
Mill, J. S., 152. 
Milton, 38, 144. 
Morgan, W. H., 150. 
Muller, Max, 129. 
Munsterberg, H., 165. 

Nathan and David, 43. 

New interest in studying, 118. 



Oral and written answers, 99. 

Painter, F. V. N., 51. 

Palmer, G. H., 174. 

Paulsen, Fr., 124. 

Personal magnetism, 40. 

Plato, 62, 63, 104, 106, 125, 126, 177. 

Plutarch, 36, 121. 

Presentation, 161. 

Presuppositions of study, 122-129. 

Primitive man, 31-34. 

Principles of teaching, 165. 

Program of work, 131. 

Question, content of, 87. 

form of, 84. 

kinds of, 68. 
Questioner, 91. 
Questioning, irnportance of, 64. 

manner of, 80. 

purposes of, 67. 

references on, 114-115. 
Questions, general and specific, 82. 

on questioning, 115-117. 

on studying, 175. 

on story-telling, 60. 
Quintilian, 95. 

Reactions of children on stories, 45. 
Readiness to answer, 94. 
References, on questioning, 114. 

on story-telling, 53. 

on study, 174-175. 
Religious and moral education, 34- 

35. 
Repetition, in questioning, 81. 
Research, 138. 
Responsibility, 163. 
Re-telling stories, 46. 
Review questions, 74. 
Robinson, J. H., 32. 
Rousseau, 96. 

Self-criticism, 96. 

Seton, Ernest Thompson, 21. 



INDEX 



181 



Socrates, 62, 63, 103-107, 108, 

109, 110, 116, 117. 
Spencer, H., 158. 
Stimulating questions, 88. 
St. John, E. P., 26, 28, 37. 
Stories, illustrations of, 22. 
Story, adaptability of, 36. 

characteristics of, 37-39. 

defined, 23. 

fact and fancy in, 25. 

form of, 26. 

how to tell a, 40-44. 

importance of, 31-37. 

place of, in education, 48. 

revival of the, 20. 
Story Hour, The, 20. 
Story Tellers' League, The, 20. 
Story Tellers' Magazine, The, 20. 
Story-telling, the purpose of, 28. 
Study, defined, 120-122. 

four phases of, 136. 

habit of, 127. 

how to study, 139-141. 

ideal of, 128. 

life of, 122. 

mechanical aids to, 129-131. 

physical conditions of, 131-133. 

results of, 166. 

with pupils, 151. 
Suggestions, for self-training, 49. 
Sympathy, in questioning, 80. 



Teacher, as student, 163. 
Teaching, good, and questioning, 

66. 
Temperature, 133. 
Texts, right attitude toward, 160. 
Thomson, J. J., 139. 
Thought-provoking questions, 90. 
Tobey, Marian E., 55. 
Training pupils to study, 149. 
Truth, and freedom, 126. 

its simplest vehicle, 34. 

love of, 125. 
Twain, Mark, 126. 

Variety in questioning, 83. 
Venerable Bede, 93. 
Ventilation, 133. 

Wagner, 38. 
Washington, 117. 
Waste in education, 119. 
Wellman, F. L., 112. 
Wiggin, K. D., 50. 
Wilson, McLandburgh, 52. 
Writing a paper, 169. 
Wyche, R. T., 20. 

Xenophon, 103, 110, 117. 

ZiUer, Tuiskon, 68, 117. 



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Modern School, A 1.25 

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and Rural Communities ... i.oo 
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Sachs The American Secondary School i.io 

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